Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness through Racial ViolenceThousands of black men died violently at the hands of mobs in the post–Civil War South. But in Brazos County, Texas, argues Cynthia Nevels, five such deaths in particular point to an emerging social phenomenon of the time: the desire of newly arrived European immigrants to assert their place in society, and the use of racially motivated violence to achieve that end. Driven by economics and the forces of history, the Italian, Irish, and Czech immigrants to this rich agricultural region were faced with the necessity of figuring out where they fit in a culture that had essentially two categories: white and black. In many ways, the newcomers realized, they belonged in neither position. In the end, they found ways to resolve the ambiguity by taking advantage of and sometimes participating directly in the South’s most brutal form of racial domination. For each of the immigrant groups caught up in the violence, the deaths of black men helped to establish racial identity and to bestow the all-important privileges of whiteness. This compelling and superbly written study will appeal to students and scholars of social and racial history, both regional and national. |
Other editions - View all
Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness Through Racial Violence Cynthia Skove Nevels Limited preview - 2007 |
Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness through Racial Violence Cynthia Skove Nevels Limited preview - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
accused African Americans Allen Myers arrested Benchley Blazek Bob Ballard Bohemians Brazos Bottom Brazos County History Brazos County Tax Brazos River Brundidge Bryan Eagle Burleson County Cahill Census citizens cotton county commissioner County's white court courthouse crowd Czech death decades Dennis Ballard Eugene Washington European immigrants Fannie Palazzo farm farmers Galveston Daily German Grimes County historians Houston Irish Irishman Italians jail June jury Kurten labor land large number later leaders lived lynch mob Main Street Mexicans Millican Miss DeHart Mudville murder named negro neighbors newcomers newspaper nineteenth century Parker party political Population Schedule Populist race racial status racial violence railroad rape Reddick Republican Robertson County saloon seemed settled Sheriff Nunn shooting Shramek slaves Smetana social South story Texas Election Registers town twentieth century U.S. Congress Varisco victims vote voters Washington Washington County white man's white southerners white supremacy white women Wilson woman zos County
Popular passages
Page 8 - ... black" were removed from misdemeanor status and reclassified as felonies. Charles L. Flynn Jr. has recently described with relentless thoroughness how Southern "society" was defined as an arena for white people, and blacks as "a racially defined laboring caste": "The equation of whiteness with membership in society was inseparable from the implicit equation of black labor with agricultural labor as a whole and of whiteness with capital — White equaled property, equaled capital, equaled society....