Lynching Legislation - South Carolina, 1932, 1947

Dates

Creation: 1932
Creation: 1947

Document Types

Clippings

Legacy Description

Headline reads, "S.C. Fails to Repeal its Lynching Bill" (clipping from February 20, 1932). -- -- Headline reads, "S.C. Democrats Issue Appeal for Federal Antilynch Law" (clipping from June 14, 1947). -- -- Progressive Democratic party -- -- Headline reads, " 'To Hell with the Constitution' says South Carolina Legislator" (undated). From clipping, "Columbia, S.C., March 2.--Efforts to pass a bill to repeal the lynching bill requiring counties in which a lynching occurs to pay the family of the victim the sum of $2,000 failed here when the House of Representatives declined to ratify the bill. The bill was introduced by M.B. Huggins of Florence and was debated for several hours."

Additional Description

Arrangement

Most of the morgue material on lynching is arranged in two main categories, Lynching Cases, and Lynching Legislation. Files documenting Lynching Cases are arranged by state. Specific lynching cases with a large volume of documents are arranged in their own folders. The lynching legislation files for federal legislation are arranged chronologically by congressional term, and state legislation by state, following the original order of the series. Additional material documenting lynchings is found elsewhere in the morgue collection, filed under the names of victims and others involved in incidents, subsequent trials, or political activity.

Processing Information

Lynching files have been processed using detailed processing procedures. All the information in the finding aid has been verified against folder content, dates and document types have been added, and more detailed arrangement and description work has been performed.

In files on lynching cases, names of victims are listed in the scope and content note for that folder, along with the locality and year of the incident. Unnamed victims are listed with location and date, and victims of attempted lynchings are also listed when named. When many documents are found for a specific victim, they are arranged in a separate folder with the victim's name in the folder title. Content warnings have been added to folder records where photographs of lynching victims are filed, or clippings with particularly graphic headlines, and such items are encapsulated within the main folders to allow researchers to choose whether or not to engage with this content.

The lynching legislation files appear to have been originally compiled around 1941, when correspondence is found between an AFRO librarian and a Congressional Research Service librarian. A 1939 report created by the Congressional Research Service is found, which may serve as an index to the content of these files.