Lynchings

by Walter T. Howard

In recent years, a number of historians have focused their scholarly attention on the dark and violent side of the American past. They understandably look for the roots of such disturbing contemporary social problems as the proliferation of extremist hate groups, occurrences of anti-ethnic violence, and undeniable incidents of police brutality in our social history. In the process, they made an interesting discovery: the southern state of Florida, with its sunshine, beaches, and palm trees, has long been plagued by vigilante crimes and extralegal violence. Indeed, lynch law violence in the Sunshine State reached its peak in the 1890s and then gradually declined over the next five decades. From 1930 to 1940, the last phase of the lynching and vigilante era, Floridians executed fifteen citizens - twelve blacks and three whites - in fatal, bloody acts committed wholly outside the law.