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How Lynching Became Public Events and Black Body Parts Were Turned into Trophies During America’s Jim Crow Era - TalkAfricana
Lynching was one of the most brutal tools of racial terror in the United States, serving as a public spectacle of white supremacy and a tool of social control over African Americans. Between the late 19th century and well into the 20th century, thousands of Black men, women, and even children were lynched, often with the active participation or complicity of local authorities. The violence was public, deliberate, and grotesque, but one of its most disturbing aspects was the tendency of white spectators to collect body parts of the lynched victims as souvenirs.