Black Concentration and Lynchings in the South: Testing Blalock's Power-Threat Hypothesis

Abstract

A review of past tests of Blalock's (c) propositions predicting relationships between minority percentage and discrimination shows significant gaps. Few studies have attempted separate tests of the competition and power-threat hypotheses, and there is substantial, but generally overlooked, evidence that the effect of percent black on discrimination is limited to the South. Employing lynching rates of blacks in southern counties between 1889 and 1931 as the dependent variable, Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) and multiple regression analysis are used to test the power-threat hypothesis that minority concentration is positively related, with increasing slope, to level of discrimination. The hypothesis is supported in the total South, but separate analyses of the Lower (Deep) and Upper (Border) South reveal subregional variation with the predicted relationship found only in the Deep South. The study supports the proposition that the effect of minority percentage on discrimination is specific to particular cultural and/or socioeconomic contexts.