Overview

Beyond the Rope is an interdisciplinary study that draws on narrative theory and cultural studies methodologies to trace African Americans' changing attitudes and relationships to lynching over the twentieth century. Whereas African Americans are typically framed as victims of white lynch mob violence in both scholarly and public discourses, Karlos K. Hill reveals that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries African Americans lynched other African Americans in response to alleged criminality, and that twentieth-century black writers envisaged African American lynch victims as exemplars of heroic manhood. By illuminating the submerged histories of black vigilantism and consolidating narratives of lynching in African American literature that framed black victims of white lynch mob violence as heroic, Hill argues that rather than being static and one dimensional, African American attitudes towards lynching and the lynched black evolved in response to changing social and political contexts.

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9781107044135

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Reviews

'In Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, Karlos K. Hill powerfully contributes to the movement among historians to reconstruct counter narratives of lynchings told from the perspective of [a] variety of African American actors pursuing very different goals. Perhaps better than has been done before, Hill has historicized African American counter narratives of lynching, situating them within their sociohistorical context and drawing out their specific political objects.' Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 'Taking to heart Stuart Hall's admonition that representation is a part of material reality and lived experience, this deeply thoughtful, richly documented, and theoretically sophisticated study breaks exciting new ground in the much-studied history of lynching. As importantly, it illuminates the ways in which agency and victimhood coexist in the African American past and in how black thinkers, performers, creative writers, activists, and family members have remembered and narrated the experience of terror.' David Roediger, Foundation Professor of American Studies and History, University of Kansas 'In Beyond the Rope, Karlos K. Hill mines diverse archival sources and deploys a multidisciplinary approach to reveal the complexity of African Americans' responses to lynching and mob violence. By simultaneously showing black people's victimization and strength, Hill illuminates artists' and activists' creation of a usable past of this violence, which was critical to black people's fight against it. This exciting and welcomed book is an important work ... that will [appeal] to scholars interested in African American history and studies.' Kidada E. Williams, Wayne State University, Michigan

Advance praise: 'In Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, Karlos K. Hill powerfully contributes to the movement among historians to reconstruct counter narratives of lynchings told from the perspective of [a] variety of African American actors pursuing very different goals. Perhaps better than has been done before, Hill has historicized African American counter narratives of lynching, situating them within their sociohistorical context and drawing out their specific political objects.' Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, University of Illinois Advance praise: 'Taking to heart Stuart Hall's admonition that representation is a part of material reality and lived experience, this deeply thoughtful, richly documented, and theoretically sophisticated study breaks exciting new ground in the much-studied history of lynching. As importantly, it illuminates the ways in which agency and victimhood coexist in the African American past and in how black thinkers, performers, creative writers, activists, and family members have remembered and narrated the experience of terror.' David Roediger, Foundation Professor of American Studies and History, University of Kansas Advance praise: 'In Beyond the Rope, Karlos K. Hill mines diverse archival sources and deploys a multidisciplinary approach to reveal the complexity of African Americans' responses to lynching and mob violence. By simultaneously showing black people's victimization and strength, Hill illuminates artists' and activists' creation of a usable past of this violence, which was critical to black people's fight against it. This exciting and welcomed book is an important work ... that will [appeal] to scholars interested in African American history and studies.' Kidada E. Williams, Wayne State University, Michigan

Advance praise: 'In Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, Karlos K. Hill powerfully contributes to the movement among historians to reconstruct counter narratives of lynchings told from the perspective of [a] variety of African American actors pursuing very different goals. Perhaps better than has been done before, Hill has historicized African American counter narratives of lynching, situating them within their sociohistorical context and drawing out their specific political objects.' Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Advance praise: 'Taking to heart Stuart Hall's admonition that representation is a part of material reality and lived experience, this deeply thoughtful, richly documented, and theoretically sophisticated study breaks exciting new ground in the much-studied history of lynching. As importantly, it illuminates the ways in which agency and victimhood coexist in the African American past and in how black thinkers, performers, creative writers, activists, and family members have remembered and narrated the experience of terror.' David Roediger, Foundation Professor of American Studies and History, University of Kansas Advance praise: 'In Beyond the Rope, Karlos K. Hill mines diverse archival sources and deploys a multidisciplinary approach to reveal the complexity of African Americans' responses to lynching and mob violence. By simultaneously showing black people's victimization and strength, Hill illuminates artists' and activists' creation of a usable past of this violence, which was critical to black people's fight against it. This exciting and welcomed book is an important work ... that will [appeal] to scholars interested in African American history and studies.' Kidada E. Williams, Wayne State University, Michigan

Author Information

Dr Karlos K. Hill is an Associate Professor of History at Texas Tech University.

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