American Experience

Learn more about the history of black-white sexual relations in this Q&A with historians Jane Dailey, James Horton, John David Smith, and Stephen Whitfield.

1.	How did whites like Milam and Bryant see themselves in relation to blacks?
2.	Why was what Till did so wrong in the eyes of Milam and Bryant? Why did a whistle result in a lynching?
3.	Mamie Till Mobley describes looking at her son's body and feeling relief that the killers hadn't mutilated his genitals. Why was she afraid they might?
4.	Some Southerners felt lynchings protected the virtue of white women. Why was that important to them?
5.	Did lynching replace slavery as a means of control?
6.	Why was intimate contact between the races so taboo?
7.	Some white slaveowners raped their slaves, though. What about that?
8.	Did whites and blacks ever fall in love?
9.	How are things different today?