From 1891 to 1905, more than a hundred blacks were lynched every year (except one), according to the book The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. The so-called offenses ranged from trying to vote to looking the wrong way at white people, especially white women. The lynchings drew public crowds to luxuriate in the cruelty.

A newspaper account described the sadism of one of these atrocities: “The mob sliced his body with knives, burned his body with red hot irons, hung him by the neck until he almost choked to death, then revived him and continued the torture. Next they dragged him to the home of the victim’s parents where several thousand people were waiting. When they stopped in front of the house, a woman came out and plunged a butcher knife into his heart.”

That was Jim Crow.