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In an increasingly globalized economy, Sims argues that Ida B. Wells s fight against lynching is a viable option to address systemic forms of oppression. More than a century since Wells launched her anti-lynching campaign, an examination of her work questions America s use of lynching as a tool to regulate behavior and the manner in which public opinion is shaped and lived out in the private sector. Ethical Complications of Lynching highlights the residual effects of lynching as a twenty-first century moral impediment in the fight to actualize ethical possibilities.

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PART I: IDENTITY AND FORMATION: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND THE SHAPING OF A ´CRUSADER FOR JUSTICE´ The Black Slave Family´s Moral Situation in Mississippi during the Civil War The Freed-Person of Color´s Moral Situation in Mississippi during Reconstruction The Head of Family´s Response to the 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic PART II: A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE: IDA B. WELLS´S CRITIQUE OF LYNCHING Wells on Lynching: An Overview Investigating Facts Interpreting Data Challenging ´Alleged Causes´ PART III: BEYOND ROPE AND FAGGOT: A WOMANIST ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF LYNCHING The Issue of Race and Lynching The Social Construction of Gender and Lynching The Intersection of Economics and Lynching PART IV: A PARADIGM SHIFT: REFORMULATING IDA B. WELLS´S 1892 RECOMMENDATION AS RESOURCES FOR A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIAN ETHIC OF RESISTANCE Re-orientation: Viewing Justice in a Racially Violent World Re-evaluation: Demythologizing Hegemonic Structures Re-interpretation: Defining Hope from a Minority Perspective Just Act: A Mandate to Talk about the Lynched

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"We all know about the horrors of lynching, but Sims takes us beyond the obvious by conducting a thorough analysis of the motivations leading to and cultural consequences of this technique of discipline.The richness of this book is that the analysis is done through the eyes of Ida B. Wells, who serves as a model upon whom to construct ethical paradigms indigenous to the African American community." - Miguel A. De La Torre, Associate Professor of Social Ethics, Iliff School of Theology, Denver

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ANGELA D. SIMS is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Black Church Studies at the Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

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