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Violent Masculinity: Ritual And Performance In Southern Lynchings, 1877-1939, Kristina Durocher
Violent Masculinity: Ritual And Performance In Southern Lynchings, 1877-1939, Kristina Durocher
Kristina DuRocher
This chapter explores the gender crisis for white males in the New South for white males who participated in ritualized violence as a method for temporarily restoring white masculinity. After the Civil War destabilized the patriarchy in which slavery was rooted, it became imperative for white men to find alternative ways to demonstrate effective manhood. Lynchings became a space where white Southerners defended white male supremacy in a public ritual of brutality against African American men.