American Lynching Ashraf H. A. Rushdy

After observing the varying reactions to the 1998 death of James Byrd, Jr. in Texas, called a lynching by some, denied by others, Ashraf Rushdy determined in order to understand this event he needed to understand the long history of lynching in the United States. In this meticulously researched and accessibly written interpretive history, Rushdy shows how lynching in America has endured, evolved, and changed in meaning over the course of three centuries, from its origins in early Virginia to the present day. Rushdy argues that we can understand what lynching means in American history by examining its evolution - that is, by seeing how the practice changes in both form and meaning over the course of three centuries, as well as by analyzing the rationales its advocates have made in its defence, and, finally, by explicating its origins. The best way of understanding what lynching has meant in different times, and for different populations, during the course of American history is by seeing both the continuities in the practice over time and the specific features in different forms of lynching in different eras.

Ashraf Rushdy is professor of the African American studies at Wesleyan University. He is the author of The Empty Garden: The Subject of Late Milton, Neo-Slave Narratives: Studies in the Social Logic of a Literary Form, and Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction.

"In this sobering account, Rushdy makes clear that the cultural values that authorize racial violence are woven into the very essence of what it means to be American. This book helps us make sense of our past as well as our present."--Jonathan Holloway, Yale University--Jonathan Holloway