At Least 2,000 More Black People Were Lynched By White Mobs Than Previously Reported, New Research Finds

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Historians have struggled for years to figure out just how many blacks were lynched. Now, thanks to a new report from the Equal Justice Initiative, the numbers are coming into clearer focus. The Alabama-based organization said its researchers have documented 6,500 lynchings between 1865 and 1950, including 2,000 attacks during Reconstruction that weren’t tallied in its previous reports.

Thousands of other blacks were also assaulted and raped, the organization said. And the actual number of attacks might never be known.

“Emboldened Confederate veterans and former enslavers organized a reign of terror that effectively nullified constitutional amendments designed to provide Black people with equal protection and the right to vote,” the report said. “Violence, mass lynchings, and lawlessness enabled white Southerners to create a regime of white supremacy and Black disenfranchisement alongside a new economic order that continued to exploit Black labor.”

EJI’s report, issued amid sweeping protests throughout the country decrying police brutality against blacks, contains graphic depictions of the violence:

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