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Lynching is often described as a form of extralegal, vigilante violence or justice; however, its meaning has evolved over time—from the tarring and feathering of individuals in the Colonial period to the lethal, racial violence that proliferated in the South. According to Digital History, "Lynching received its name from Judge Charles Lynch, a Virginia farmer who punished outlaws and Tories with "rough" justice during the American Revolution."<ref name="Digital History">[http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3178], Digital History.</ref> The United States has a long history of vigilance committees whose purposes were to protect the community. According to Linda Gordon, “vigilantism generally means bypassing the legal procedures of the state and substituting direct, usually punitive and coercive action by self-appointed groups of citizens".<ref name="Linda Gordon">Linda Gordon, ''The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction'', p. 255.</ref> In some instances, vigilantism is romanticized—like in the west—as a form of outspoken, American democracy. While lynching has existed, historically, in many forms, it is most commonly associated with the form it took in the South in the late 19th century.

According to the group Monroe Work Today, by 1835, lynchings were more common and more leathal. In the middle of the 19th century lynchings were “a crude form of frontier justice done by vigilantes ‘keeping the peace,’” and approximately 40% of lynchings in this period were done to white men.<ref name="Monroe Work Today">[http://www.monroeworktoday.org/lynching.html], Monroe Work Today, The Rise of Lynchings.</ref> Contrary to popular belief, lynchings frequently occurred in places where there were courthouses. Lynchings were not a symptom of lawlessness. Rather, as lynchings began to occur more frequently in the west, they were tools of violence used against non-white groups to challenge the slow pace of the legal system, in favor of immediate action. Before 1877 (the end of Reconstruction), most lynchings happened in the West. Lynching victims also varied by region. Those that occurred in the North typically targeted Italians, Jews, or other immigrants, while those in the west targeted Mexicans or Chinese. Nevertheless, beginning in the 1880s, approximately 90% of lynchings occurred in the South and happened to black men.

Lynchings began to be used more systematically in the South in the late 19th century. The late 19th century witnessed a social transformation for African Americans in the South. Newly-enfranchised, many African Americans began to exercise their legal and social rights. In the absence of system of legal subjugation that ensured white supremacy (i.e. slavery), lynchings were a constant and imminent threat that prevented African Americans in the South from truly being free. Lynchings served as a system of terror designed around reinforcing African-Americans’ second-class status.

In 1892, Ida B. Wells wrote ''Southern Horrors'' to document the practice of lynching in the South after three of her friends in Memphis were killed by a mob for operating a black-owned grocery store. Their lynching, and her subsequent pamphlet, inspired the teacher to pursue investigative journalism and an anti-lynching campaign.

Wells was correct, and when she returned to the US after her 1894 tour, “she returned to a country where lynching was widely discussed as a stain on American civilization.”<ref name"Manliness & Civilization">Gail Bederman, ''Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917'' p. 45".</ref>

Northern and British distaste, however, did very little for African-Americans in the South as lynchings continued to occur. According to some estimates, some 2,400 African Americans were lynched between 1889 and 1918. These events were community sanctioned, and the victims were often beaten, tortured, and mutilated before death. After death, photographs were sold as souvenirs to commemorate attendance or participation, and body parts—teeth, fingers, ashes, and clothes—were sold or taken as tokens.

Lynchings remained an unfortunate reality for many African-Americans through the first half of the 20th century. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Chicago boy, was lynched in Mississippi after purportedly flirting with a white woman (Recently, journalist Timothy Tyson has released an interview with Carolyn Bryant--the women who accused Till of acting inappropriately with her. According to her own admission, she fabricated the parts of the story where she said he got physical with her). Several days after the incident, Till was abducted, mutilated, murdered, and thrown into a river. His mother demanded a public funeral with an open casket to show the world what had happened to her son. An all-white jury acquitted the men involved, even though they later admitted their involvement. This case generated widespread attention because of Till’s young age, the brutality of the crime, and his attackers’ acquittal. It also helped to start a new phase of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. The last official lynching was recorded in 1968, though many would argue that James Byrd’s murder in 1998 at the hands of three white men was a lynching as well.