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Bob Lewis’ Encounter With The ‘Great Death:’ Port Jervis’ Entrance Into The ‘United States Of Lyncherdom, Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

This paper is a local study of a lynching in Port Jervis, New York in 1892. The victim was a black man, Bob Lewis. This study intends to situate Lewis’ lynching in both its historical and cultural contexts. Larger than that, this paper argues that even though southern and northern lynchings, particularly when the victims were African American, resembled one another in several important ways—including higher incidences of mutilation and torture; often becoming a form of white communal entertainment in which white participants often collected and/or sold relics in order to commemorate the event; and the bodies often being left …