Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness through Racial Violence. By Cynthia Skove Nevels. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. xiv, 189 pp. $24.95, ISBN 978-1-58544-589-9.)

Abstract

Brazos County, which lies roughly in the center of eastern Texas, contributed significantly to the region's notorious history of racial violence. Cynthia Skove Nevels examines that history in Lynching to Belong. Nevels's primary thesis is that European immigrant groups residing in Brazos County participated in the lynching culture in order to demonstrate their “whiteness” and to distinguish themselves from the truly disadvantaged African American population. One does not need to agree with the broader conclusions that Nevels draws from her evidence to appreciate the path that she has taken to reach them. Through careful archival research, Nevels provides a fascinating and compelling social history of Brazos County. She weaves an interesting story of frontier expansion, local politics, economic development, demographic change, and mob violence against African Americans. Central to this story is the arrival and settlement of four immigrant groups—Italians, Irish, Bohemians, and Jews. This focus is a significant contribution of Nevels's book to our understanding of southern history. According to Nevels, when those immigrant groups arrived in Brazos County their racial status was indeterminate. Upward socioeconomic mobility was one well-worn path that immigrants traveled to achieve full acceptance by the native-white majority population. A second, less wholesome, strategy for gaining acceptance was to embrace the violent, often deadly, subjugation of blacks in the area. For example, regarding the lynching of three black men who were extracted from the Bryan jail by a white mob, Nevels writes, “Both groups of instigators—Italian immigrants and Populist farmers—had much to gain through the lynching, though the Italians were by far the greater beneficiaries in the long run by the enhanced whiteness that the lynching conferred on them” (p. 93, emphasis added). Later, she notes, “For the Irish of Brazos County, racial violence helped to make their whiteness more visible than ever” (p. 96, emphasis added).