The lynching of women in the United States refers to the extrajudicial killing of women and girls between the 1830s and the 1960s. While the majority of lynching victims were African-American men and boys, the majority of female lynching victims were African-American women and girls. The lynching of Black women has sometimes been understudied by academics and overlooked by the general public. The role of white women as perpetrators of lynching is also understudied. Between 1865 and 1965, of around 5,000 Black lynching victims, between 120 and 200 Black women and girls were lynched, or around 3% to 4% of all victims. A small number of women lynching victims were white, some of whom were lynched for associating with African Americans. Other women lynching victims were Indigenous, Latina, or Asian. While women lynching victims were often "successfully demonized", the lynching of white women was more likely to cause "shock, horror, and condemnation" from the general public.
History
Due to the invisibility of Black women lynching victims, inaccuracies in historical scholarship, and cases of unconfirmed lynchings, compiling statistics regarding Black women lynchings presents challenges for researchers and historians. There also remains scholarly debate as to what constitutes lynching. In addition to extrajudicial killings of Black women and girls, many were also victims of legal executions and riots that targeted Black Americans regardless of sex.
Women were not lynched in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, or Wisconsin, as those states have no recorded lynchings.
Two women have been reportedly lynched in Virginia history. The 1878 lynching of Charlotte Harris near Harrisonburg is the only documented instance of a Black woman being lynched. The only possible instance of a white woman being lynched was the 1897 reported lynching of Peb Falls, also in Rockingham County, Virginia.
Following the lynching of Eliza Woods in 1896, the investigative journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells denounced the lynching in The Gate City Press, an African-American newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri.
List of women lynching victims Black women Charlotte Harris - 1878, Virginia Harriet Finch - 1885, North Carolina Eliza Woods - 1886, Tennessee Mahala Jackson - 1893, Mississippi Louisa Carter - 1893, Mississippi Hannah E. Phillips - 1895, Texas Hannah Kearse - 1895, South Carolina Harriet Talley - 1895, Tennessee Julia Baker - 1897, South Carolina Eliza Goode - 1898, South Carolina Rose Etheridge - 1898, South Carolina Laura Cebron - 1898, Texas Ballie Crutchfield - 1901, Tennessee Betsy and Ida McCray - 1901, Mississippi Marie Thompson - 1904, KentuckyWright, George C. 1990. Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and "Legal Lynchings". Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press. pp. 116, 186. Laura Mitchell - 1910, Arkansas Laura Nelson - 1911, Oklahoma Mary Jackson - 1912, Texas Marie Scott - 1914, Oklahoma Rose Carson - 1914, South Carolina Bessie, Lena, and Sarah Cabiness - 1914, Texas Cordella Stevenson - 1915, Mississippi Mary Dennis - 1916, Florida Stella Young - 1916, Florida Alma and Maggie Howze - 1918, Mississippi Mary Turner - 1918, Georgia Bertha Lowman - 1926, South Carolina Betty Gardner - 1978, South Carolina
Latina women Josefa Segovia - 1851, California
Native American women Multiple Southern Paiute women and one girl murdered during the Circleville Massacre - 1866, Utah
White women Kit Kelly - 1888, Texas Ellen Watson - 1889, Wyoming Sallie Molena and daughter - 1890, Texas Nancy Jane Crocker - 1895, Texas Peb Falls (reported, but unconfirmed) - 1897, Virginia
See also Black feminism Lynching of American Jews Lynching of Asian Americans Lynching of Hispanic and Latino Americans Lynching of Italian Americans Lynching of Native Americans Lynching of white Americans Misogynoir Violence against women
Further reading Simien, Evelyn M. Gender and Lynching: The Politics of Memory, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
References
External links
Lynching of Women in United States Blog Series: The Lynching of Mrs. Mary Turner and Her Family, National Archives