Since the end of Reconstruction, following the end of the Civil War, white resistance to democracy and African American freedom resulted in lynchings. This period of white supremacist violence largely took place in the American south as a form of domestic terrorism. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. 3,446 of those who were lynched were African American. African Americans of all ages and genders were subject to the inhumane, extrajudicial plunder of their flesh for the sake of entertainment and spectacle.
This syllabus is designed to provide historical context to the civil case of Beulah Mae Donald v. the United Klans of America, the criminal cases on behalf of Michael Donald, and the CNN documentary “The People v. the Klan” created by Blumhouse Television.
