Includes its Report, 1896-19 .

Whether conveyed through newspapers, photographs, or Billie Holliday’s haunting song “Strange Fruit,” lynching has immediate and graphic connotations for all who hear the word. Images of lynching are generally unambiguous: black victims hanging from trees, often surrounded by gawking white mobs. While this picture of lynching tells a distressingly familiar story about mob violence in America, it is not the full story. Lynching in America presents the most comprehensive portrait of lynching to date, demonstrating that while lynching has always been present in American society, it has been anything but one-dimensional. Ranging from personal correspondence to courtroom transcripts to journalistic accounts, Christopher Waldrep has extensively mined an enormous quantity of documents about lynching, which he arranges chronologically with concise introductions. He reveals that lynching has been part of American history since the Revolution, but its victims, perpetrators, causes, and environments have changed over time. From the American Revolution to the expansion of the western frontier, Waldrep shows how communities defended lynching as a way to maintain law and order. Slavery, the Civil War, and especially Reconstruction marked the ascendancy of racialized lynching in the nineteenth century, which has continued to the present day, with the murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s contention that he was lynched by Congress at his confirmation hearings. Since its founding, lynching has permeated American social, political, and cultural life, and no other book documents American lynching with historical texts offering firsthand accounts of lynchings, explanations, excuses, and criticism.

"I find him to be a kindred spirit, a sympathetic but shrewd enquirer, a companionable stroller, and a lover of anecdotes gathered by the wayside." So Tim Robinson described folklorist, revolutionary, and district justice Seán Mac Giollarnáth, whose 1941 book Annála Beaga ó Iorras Aithneach revealed his sheer delight in the rich language and stories of the people he encountered in Conamara, the Irish-speaking region in the south of Connemara. From tales of smugglers, saints, and scholars to memories of food, work, and family, the stories gathered here provide invaluable insights into the lives and culture of the community. This faithful and lovingly crafted translation, complete with annotations, a biography, and thoughtful chapters that explore the importance of the language and region, is the final work of both Robinson and his collaborator, the renowned writer and Irish language expert Liam Mac Con Iomaire. Translated into English for the first time, Conamara Chronicles: Tales from Iorras Aithneach preserves the art of storytellers in the West of Ireland and honors the inspiration they kindle even still.