Lynching: the mass murder of a person who could be considered a public offender. Although white Southerners may have considered themselves vigilantes, they were in reality killers with biased intentions. In the American South during the 1960s, lynchings were common by today's standards. Although lynching changed the lives of those directly connected to the victims, it also changed minds and actions where it occurred and across the country. Thus, the motives for racial lynching and the crimes themselves affected the people, the legislature, and the culture of the South for years. Part of the consequences of lynching in the South concerned the psychological consequences on the mobs involved. The entire culture of African Americans is marked by lynching, because the fundamental reason why white mobs lynched African Americans in the South was skin pigmentation. This means that black people were lynched based on ignorant intolerance; however, the supposed basis for hatred of white southerners is internalized by every black person, regardless of skin color. In the words of Lee H. Butler Jr., “Unlike a single traumatic event experienced by a single person, lynching is a trauma that scarred an entire culture and several generations because it spanned more than eight decades. » The psychological effects of lynching on African Americans and on African Americans whose family members were lynched are significant. The mental impact of a lynching victim's family members is life-changing. Often being responsible for recovering the body, families saw in their corpses a representation of white hatred toward them and their family member (Lee H. Butler). More than 2,805 families endured this middle of paper......ching has changed the South and Southerners, but accepting the truth and moving forward with history in mind is the path to racism . understanding.Works CitedAnti-lynching bill. 2014. April 27, 2014. Brazil, Jana Evans. History of lynching in the United States. 2013. April 27, 2014. Everet, Dianna. Lynching. 2013. April 29, 2014. Lee H. Butler, Jr. Lynching: A Post-Traumatic Stress Factor in a World of Prolonged Trauma. 2012. April 27, 2014. Zangrando, Robert L., John F Callahan and Dickson D Bruce. About lynching. 2013. April 16 2014 .