Southern Women in the Anti-Lynching Campaign: Part B

Part B: Essay

Directions: Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs, and a conclusion. Use evidence from at least five documents in the body of the essay. Support your response with relevant facts, examples, and details. Include additional outside information.

Historical Context:

After the end of Reconstruction in the South, a system of segregation emerged that was in part maintained by the threat of lynching, an act of violence in which white mobs seized, tortured and murdered black victims. Lynchings hit their peak in 1892, when mobs murdered 230 African Americans. Southerners rationalized this sadistic practice by claiming that its main purpose was to protect the virtue of southern white women from Black men. However, many of the victims of lynching were not even accused of sexual violence, including the many women and children who were lynched.

African-American women led the growing vocal opposition to lynching in the 1890s. After 1920, white southern women also began to protest lynching. The Association of Southern Women to Prevent Lynching, formed in 1930 under the leadership of Jessie Daniel Ames, hoped to eradicate mob violence by educating the southern public about the falseness of common justifications for lynching.

Task:

Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, write an essay in which you:

Guidelines:  

In your essay, be sure to: