Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

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Between 1877 and 1950, more than 360 African-Americans were murdered by mobs in Alabama and more than 4,000 were killed nationwide. Taking a broader view than I was able to find, Harris-Perry points out that the act was never about protecting vulnerable white women from "brute"--i. The almost one hundred images reproduced here are a testament to the camera's ability to make us remember what we often choose to forget.

Far from an archaic holdover, Southern lunching was in many ways intertwined with and exacerbated by modern technology.

The very existence of these photographs, the fact that they were taken at all, is evidence of the almost pathological depravity of those who committed these terrible crimes. James Allen (born 1954) is an American collector best known for his vast collection of photographs of lynchings in America. But it is with a great deal of caution that I recommend this great book to my daughter or to any other sensitive reader.

Those images are so much more powerful postcard-size than anything they can throw up on a wall,” Allen said.

That enables us to dismiss what we see as an aberration, as the work of crazed fiends and psychopaths"(33-34). I hate the contents, I hate the people who did this and taught their kids to be like them, I hate that this was part of the learning my people have had to endure from the people who .