I read The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States in 2015. It was a couple years after the start of #BlackLivesMatter. I read it after the mayor of Charleston claimed not to know about the treatment of blacks, so people created reading lists, and this was on them.

It came to my mind that #BlackLivesMatter is really a modern version of the Red Record.

The United States to create fairness has a justice system. Law enforcement makes an arrest. Criminal prosecutors charge the arrestee. A judge runs a trial. A jury makes a decision on guilt. In the case of the jury deciding the individual is guilty, there is a punishment applied. In the most severe offenses being guilty, the individual might get an execution.

Lynchings are where the individual gets an execution without a trial. A mob kills the individual. Or it might be a smaller group.

Law enforcement killing someone they sought to arrest circumvents justice where they are supposed to uphold it.