Lynching and the New South and Its Impact on the Historiography of Black Resistance to Lynching

William Fitzhugh Brundage’s scholarship on lynching and on the anti-lynching movement has spanned more than three decades. During his long and productive career, Brundage has engaged with some of the most complex questions related to lynching and racial violence in contemporary scholarship, and in doing so, he has helped initiative and sustain many productive avenues of research. Indeed, my dissertation, as well as my first book, Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching and Black Culture and Memory, profited immensely from Brundage’s pioneering research and writing. As a historian of the Black experience of lynching, my goal in this brief essay is to identify and put into context some of the important interventions and contributions Brundage has made with his book Lynching in the New South and related scholarship. With that said, it should be acknowledged that Brundage’s impact extends far beyond his published work. His mentorship to numerous PhD candidates and his service to the field as a manuscript reviewer cannot be ignored. At best, my discussion of Brundage’s seminal works offers an approximation of his scholarly impact.

Hill, Karlos K. “Lynching and the New South and Its Impact on the Historiography of Black Resistance to Lynching.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 20, no. 1 (January 2021): 143–47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781420000572.