"L" is for Lynching

"L" is for Lynching. The origin of the word “lynching” has several explanations. One is that the term derives from Lynches Creek, South Carolina. Lynches Creek was known as a meeting site for the Regulators, a group of vigilantes who used violence against their opponents. This definition and one about a Virginia justice of the peace refer to forms of frontier vigilantism. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, lynching took on a new, racial connotation and was primarily carried out by whites against African Americans.” Between 1882 and 1930, there were at least 2,805 lynching victims in the American South—156 in South Carolina. The last lynching in the state occurred in 1947 when a white mob murdered Willie Earl, a young black man who had been arrested for allegedly murdering a white taxicab driver.