Racial Terror Also Operated Through Courts

The history of racial killing cannot be divided neatly into unlawful mobs and impartial courts. The death penalty itself carried racial distinctions.

The Death Penalty Information Center reports that, between 1930 and 1972, 455 people were executed for rape in the United States. Of those, 405—approximately 89 percent—were Black. Nearly all of these executions occurred in former Confederate states.

Those figures describe executions for rape, not all executions. These executions reveal how the legal system used the power to kill overwhelmingly against Black people convicted of rape. The racial hierarchy extended into the courthouse, where punishment carried the authority of the state.

EJI’s historical research also connects the decline of lynching with increased reliance on court-ordered executions following proceedings that were sometimes accelerated to satisfy demands for punishment.

Moving a killing into a courtroom changed its legal form without resolving the racial power surrounding it. Judicial proceedings carried the authority of law while operating within a society that denied Black people equal protection.

This history requires us to examine both who receives a death sentence and whose victimization generates the strongest demand for death.