White Southerners who supported lynching had a clear view of the violent act’s function: They believed that lynching was an opportunity to exercise justice outside of the limitations of the law. Those who committed lynchings saw themselves as upstanding members of society and vigilantes, enacting capital punishment on supposed criminals. Capital punishment is considered a way to eliminate future threats from the general population; dangerous criminals are identified and killed so that they cannot act again. However, lynchers committed atrocious acts of racist violence, and the deaths of lynching victims did not protect anyone. By contrast, racist violence like lynching is used to maintain power and control in a white supremacist society.

Wells highlights how lynching rose in popularity after Emancipation. During slavery, white people viewed their enslaved workers as capital, and so they had an interest in keeping enslaved Black people alive. After Emancipation, many white people saw granting rights to Black citizens as a threat to their way of life, believing that a voting Black population meant that white interests would no longer be protected or supported. White Southerners worried that Black citizens would hold property and take jobs that they believed rightfully belonged to them.