Popular Justice

Manfred Berg traces the history of lynching in America from the colonial era to the present. Berg focuses on lynching as extralegal communal punishment performed by "ordinary" people. He confronts racially fragmented historical memory and legacies of popular justice to help the reader make better sense of lynching as part of American history.

Chapter 1: The Roots of Lynching in Colonial and Revolutionary North America
Chapter 2: The Rising Tide of Lynch-Law in Antebellum America
Chapter 3: Frontier Justice
Chapter 4: Lynching, Riots, and Political Terror in the Civil War Era
Chapter 5: "Indescribable Barbarism": The Lynching of African Americans in the Age of Jim Crow
Chapter 6: Popular Justice Beyond Black and White
Chapter 7: The Struggle Against Lynching
Chapter 8: From Lynching to Hate Crime
Conclusion: Lynching in American Memory and Culture