re: #25 Decatur Deb

Yes—the act is social control masked as revenge or outrage. I post this periodically for ref:

Lynching Statistics, Tuskegee Institute

[Link: www.law.umkc.edu…]

The newspaper coverage of lynchings at the time would often portray them as a righteously angry populace so revulsed by the terrible, horrible crime (*cough* what crime? no trials) that their fine moral sense compelled them to do what they did.