Gender and Lynching ― The Politics of Memory

Mary Turner was eight months pregnant when a mob of several hundred men and women murdered her in Valdosta, Georgia. The Associated Press reported that she had made 'unwise remarks' and 'flew into a rage' about the lynching of her husband, insisting that she would press charges against the men responsible. Her death in May of 1918 prompted a widespread, multifaceted response that continues to evolve today.

The powerful imagery of lynching is likely to be with us for long time, and with it, a desire for deeper understanding. Where much of the scholarship on lynching and its victims has focused on African American men, Gender and Lynching locates and centers African American women in this history. Although the ritual of lynching claimed many lives, Gender and Lynching is not so much about Black female victimhood as it is about reclaiming the life stories of African American women via public remembrance, oral history, and community narratives.

This collection makes a major contribution to American history and sheds new light on the ways constructions of race and gender still influence contemporary life.

Evelyn M. Simien is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, jointly appointed with the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut, USA. She is an Associate Editor for Polity (the Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association) and the author of Black Feminist Voices in Politics.