Building a New Digital Archive: Documenting Anti-Black Violence in the “Jim Crow” U.S. South, 1930–1954

Abstract

Today’s Black Lives Matter movement has drawn attention to racial violence, especially lethal police violence, and compared it to the “Jim Crow” U.S. South. However, this comparison requires more specific information about racial violence during this period. Uncovering and organizing this information are the main objectives of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. It documents racial killings in the American South, 1930–1954. Racial killings refer to killings where racial animus, or perceived infraction of Jim Crow norms, are documented or reasonably inferred from newspaper reports or U.S. government and civil rights organization documents. This research note discusses how the Archive contributes to basic comparative politics topics of democratic governance and subnational authoritarianism and methodological concerns, including the creation of databases used in the comparative study of collective vigilantism.