EJI has documented 4084 racial terror lynchings in twelve Southern states between the end of Reconstruction in 18, which is at least 800 more lynchings in these states than previously reported. We reviewed local newspapers, historical archives, and court records conducted interviews with local historians, survivors, and victims’ descendants and exhaustively examined contemporaneously published reports in African American newspapers.

EJI conducted extensive analysis of these data as well as supplemental research and investigation of lynchings in each of the subject states. These sources are widely viewed asthe most comprehensive collection of research data on the subject of lynching in America. Tolnay provided an invaluable resource, as did the research collected at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. EJI researchers have documented several hundred more lynchings than the number identified in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date. Racial terror lynching was much more prevalent than previously reported.