Red Record of Lynching Map

This map was submitted to Congress in 1922 to support an anti-lynching bill, H. R. 13, introduced by Representative Leonidas Dyer of Missouri. The Dyer bill had already passed in the House and awaited a vote in the Senate.

The map was created by a leader in the anti-lynching crusade, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, editor of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and author of two anti-lynching texts, Southern Horrors and The Red Record. It was issued by the Colored Women’s Clubs of Michigan.

The map indicates the number of lynchings that occurred in each state from 1889 to 1921 (3,424 in 33 years), as well as the members of Congress in each state who voted against the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. It specifically calls out Northern members of Congress who voted against the Dyer bill in red letters.

Dyer reintroduced the measure in each new Congress in the 1920s to no avail. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century alone.