Lynching

As of June 6, 2020, lynching—the premeditated extrajudicial killing of a human being by a group of people—was not a federal crime in the United States.

From 1877 to 1950, an estimated 4,700 people died by lynching—hanging, burning alive, drowning, shooting, and beating to death. Of those lynched, 72 percent were black. Of the lynchings, 79 percent occurred in the South.

The victims of these lynchings are memorialized at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (also informally known as the Lynching Memorial) in Montgomery, Alabama, on the same grounds as the Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Mass Incarceration