African Americans and the Anti-lynching Movement

Memorial Funeral Service for Lynching Victims, circa 1950

"A Petition to the Human Rights Commission of the Social and Economic Council of the United Nations; and to the General Assembly Delegations of the Member States of the United Nations", circa 1948<br />

This petition specifically addresses the problem of lynching in Georgia, including statistics for victims.

"Things I Believe to be Facts as I Have Been Able to Observe Them", by Walter R. Chivers, circa 1930

Walter R. Chivers of the Committee for Interracial Cooperation penned this list of harsh truths behind lynching.

Letter From Arthur Raper to the Members of the Georgia Committee on Interracial Cooperation, with Report on Lynching in Gerogia, February 18, 1931

This letter includes a report from the Committee on Interracial Cooperation on lynching in Georgia.

Letter From Arthur Raper (Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching) to John Hope (Atlanta University), November 28, 1933

John Hope, President of Atlanta University, and his wife, Lugenia Burns Hope, were staunch supporters of the anti-lynching movement. Mrs. Hope was a leader in the Neighborhood Union.

Anti-lynching Statement "To the President, the Cabinet, the Congress of the United States, the Governors and Legislators of the Several States of the United States of America", March 1, 1918

This statement, from women of Georgia, directly links lynching to the failure of the government to protect its citizens.

"Women Gather Here and Condemn Mob Law In Georgia", January 15, 1931<br />

In the 1930s, women's groups were still working to end the practice of lynching.

African-American activists also worked to end to lynching violence. Lynching was used as a way to control and repress African-Americans: murdering African American by extrajudicial mob actions and creating an environment of violence, intimidation, and terror. Like the pursuit of education, the roots of the anti-lynching movement were in the freedom activities started before the Civil War.

Many groups throughout the South worked to put an end to lynching; the height of these efforts was from 1890s - 1930s. One such group, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC), was founded in the aftermath of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot to foster better bi-racial relations. African-American women were leaders in the anti-lynching movement. In Atlanta, the Neighborhood Union, an African American women’s social services organization included among its members women from Atlanta’s black middle class, such as Lugenia Burns Hope. They partnered with the CIC to encourage legislation that would end lynchings.

W.E.B. Du Bois was also an outspoken critic of communities that allowed lynchings to take place and of the national government that would not protect all of its citizens. Du Bois authored many pieces for anti-lynching groups and used the NAACP journal, Crisis, as a platform to expose the truths about lynchings. He unflinchingly published photographs of lynched corpses as a way to force Americans to face a homegrown horror.