Lynching

Lynching is a form of Terrorism when a mob murders or injures someone without trial usually because of something that the person has done or might have done. Sometimes victims of lynchings were accused of serious crimes but were killed without proper trial but all too often victims were accused of minor crimes like shop lifting or had simply gone against local customs. The issue of the victim's guilt is usually secondary, since the mob serves as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. Due process yields to momentary passions and expedient objectives. 

Originally whites used lynching to punish black slaves but whites who were brave enough to protest against this also risked getting lynched. After 1867 when the KKK were formed lynchings of black people became far more common. Sometimes the Ku Klux Klan have lynched people for being black and influential or for opposing Segregation or simply for being black.

References and External links
http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm About Lynching]
 * Lynching