An organization that founded the nation’s first memorial to lynching victims announced Tuesday that it has documented thousands of additional killings of black people during the era of Reconstruction.
The Equal Justice Initiative said it has now documented nearly 6,500 lynchings of black people between 1865 and 1950. The group, which previously documented 4,500 lynchings, on Tuesday released a new report titled “Reconstruction in America” that documents nearly an additional 2,000 lynchings between 1865 and 1876. “We cannot understand our present moment without recognizing the lasting damage caused by allowing white supremacy and racial hierarchy to prevail during Reconstruction,” Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson said in a.