Ida B. Wells‐Barnett as an anticolonial theorist on crime and punishment

Treasuring the legacy of Ida B Wells‐Barnett as a Black feminist is a vital liberatory commitment, as previous scholarship has commendably demonstrated. Equally important, however, is the need to present Wells‐Barnett as an anticolonial theorist whose scholarly texts—Southern Horrors, A Red Record, and Crusade for Justice—should be incorporated into social theory curricula. This article examines Wells‐Barnett's acute apprehension of the foundational structures of the US empire‐state in her scholarly writings on lynching. As she analysed, the white mob violence epitomised the co‐re‐formation of race and gender, rule of difference, and subversion of offender‐judge relationship. The agency of non‐state actors (e.g., lynch mobs) and government agents (e.g., judge and politicians) co‐constituted the reformation—not total transformation—of these foundational structures. Lynching, therefore, was the lynchpin of the US empire‐state in the post‐Reconstruction period: it sustained the white supremacist order by imposing a mass death penalty on Black people, while simultaneously serving as a disgrace to US civilization. To conclude, we highlight how Wells‐Barnett's theory offers broader relevance to anticolonial/postcolonial sociology, particularly through her subaltern standpoint, attention to the role of non‐state actors, and her commitment to intersectional analysis.