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The Case Stated
Wells traces how the pretexts for lynching shifted after emancipation — from suppressing alleged "race riots," to punishing Black political power, to the "new cry" of rape — and argues the shifting excuses themselves expose lynching as organized terror rather than a response to crime.
Shifting pretexts for lynching after emancipationThe "new cry" of rape as pretextBlack political power and Reconstruction-era violence