Lynchings and Rape

Between 1880 and 1935, segregation proliferated. There were whites and blacks only signs in restrooms, at drinking fountains, separate bibles for black and white witnesses, basically expressing the “separate but NOT equal.” Some racial etiquette was that blacks and whites did not shake hands, blacks didn’t look directly into whites’ eyes, blacks stared at the ground to address whites, blacks were to never look at white women, and black women couldn’t try on clothes in white stores. Most lynching victims were mostly black men. Some of the excuses were either they was accused of rape/violence perpetrated against white women, race hatred, or demonstration of power. Rape was more common among black women more than lynching. White men considered black women inferior. Black men tried to protect black women, and they refused to let them work as domestics for white men, but there was so much they couldn’t do on their own. It was believed that white men should have unlimited access to black women, physically and sexually. Most rapes among the white women, accusing black men, were mostly false, an excuse to get a black man lynched, which Ida B. Wells made known. The photos of the lynching were very horrific! Many not from the South were afraid or had that fear of not coming South.