Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-v2ckm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T07:19:57.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exploring Relations Among Forms of Social Control: The Lynching and Execution of Blacks in North Carolina, 1889–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Charles David Phillips
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Official and unofficial forms of social control are usually considered substitutable responses to individual acts of deviance. This analysis of the lynching and execution of blacks in North Carolina indicates that these two forms of social control, one official and the other unofficial, served not simply as substitutes, but also as complements during much of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Only after the disenfranchisement of the black population did the relationship between official and unofficial killing begin to imply substitution. This relationship, and its transformation following disenfranchisement, are more easily understood from a social conflict perspective than from an approach that emphasizes social control as a response to individual deviance. These results imply that future inquiries into relations among forms of social control might profit from an increased sensitivity to the dynamics of macrosocial conflict.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , 1987 , pp. 361 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

The author thanks Jack Donnelly, Catherine Hawes, Herbert Hirsch, Michael Lienesch, Joe Oppenheimer, Nell Painter, and the reviewers of the Law & Society Review for their comments and criticisms. Research assistance from Etsuko Jennings, Kelley Mortimer, Elizabeth Nealon, and Nancy Stark is also gratefully acknowledged. The University Research Council of the University of North Carolina provided funds in support of this research.

References

BLACK, D. (1984a) “Social Control as a Dependent Variable,” in Black, D. (ed.), Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Vol. 1. Orlando: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Black, D. (1984b) “Crime as Social Control,” in Black, D. (ed.), Toward a General Theory of Social Control, Vol. 2. Orlando: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Black, D. (1976) The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
BOWERS, W. (1984) Legal Homicide: Death as Punishment in America, 1864–1982. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
BROOKS, J. T. (1974) “A Rhetorical Study of the Campaign Speaking of Selected Southern Reform Governors During the Progressive Era.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida.Google Scholar
BROWN, R.M. (1969a) “The American Vigilante Tradition,” in Graham, H. D. and Gurr, T. R. (eds.), The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Gurr, T. R. (1969b) “Historical Patterns of Violence in America,” in Graham, H. D. and Gurr, T. R. (eds.), The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
COLLINS, W. H. (1918) The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race. New York: The Neale Publishing Co.Google Scholar
CUTLER, J. E. (1907) “Capital Punishment and Lynching,” 29 The Annals 622.Google Scholar
CUTLER, J. E. (1905) Lynch-Law: An Investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF NORTH CAROLINA (1904) Democratic Handbook. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton.Google Scholar
DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF NORTH CAROLINA (1900) A Handbook of Republican Misrule and Negro Domination Which Led to the Passage of the Amendment by the Legislature of 1899, and the Reason for Its Adoption. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton.Google Scholar
DOLLARD, J. (1937) Caste and Class in a Southern Town. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
HAGAN, J., and K., BUMILLER (1983) “Making Sense of Sentencing: A Review and Critique of Sentencing Research,” in A. Blumstein et al. (eds.), Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform, Vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
HALL, J. (1979) Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign Against Lynching. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
LEFLER, H., and A., NEWSOME (1954) North Carolina: The History of a Southern State. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
LOCKHART, W.S. (1972) “Lynching in North Carolina, 1888-1906.” Master's Thesis, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
NAACP (1919) Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918. New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.Google Scholar
PHILLIPS, C. (1986) “Social Structure and Social Control: Modeling the Discriminatory Execution of Blacks in Georgia and North Carolina. 1925–35,” 65 Social Forces 458.Google Scholar
TURK, Austin (1982a) Political Criminality. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
TURK, Austin (1982b) “Social Control and Social Conflict,” in Gibbs, J. (ed.), Social Control: Views from the Social Sciences. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
WELLS-BARNETT, I. (1901) “Lynching and the Excuse for It,” The Independent 1133.Google Scholar
ZANGRANDO, R. (1980) The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909–1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar