University Press of Florida Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida (A Florida Quincentennial Book)

Review Adds to the burgeoning historiography that underlines the interrelationship of the local and the global, civil rights, or rather the lack thereof, in the United States and in the international realm.--Amerikastudien/American Studies"Characterizes the level of terror in Florida as among the worst in the South. . . . An important insight of Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home is the long-term psychological damage suffered by blacks who frequently experienced white violence during the Jim Crow era."--Florida Times-Union"Hobbs stresses that lynchings continued in Florida much longer than almost anywhere else in the country. . . . A welcome and valuable contribution to the growing field of lynching and mob violence studies."--H-Net Product Description Florida often seems not quite southern - yet it suffered more lynching than any of its Deep South neighbors when examined in proportion to the number of African American residents.Investigating this dark era of the state’s history and focusing on a string of brutal lynchings that took place during the 1940s, Tameka Hobbs explores the reasons why lynchings continued in Florida when they were starting to wane elsewhere. She contextualizes the murders within the era of World War II, contrasting the desire of the United States to broadcast the benefits of its democracy abroad while at home it struggled to provide legal protection to its African American citizens.As involvement in the global war deepened and rhetoric against Axis powers heightened, the nation’s leaders became increasingly aware of the blemish left by extralegal violence on America’s reputation. Ultimately, Hobbs argues, the international implications of these four murders, along with other antiblack violence around the nation, increased pressure not only on public officials in Florida to protect the civil rights of African Americans in the state but also on the federal government to become more active in prosecuting racial violence. About the Author Tameka Bradley Hobbs is assistant professor of history at Florida Memorial University, USA.