The John Crow Project
Documenting the history of anti-Chinese lynchings, riots, and massacres
in the American West (1850 – 1915)
What Is the John Crow Project?
Between the California Gold Rush and the First World War, Chinese immigrants were subjected to a coordinated regime of racial terror—lynchings, riots, expulsions, and legal exclusion. This project calls that Western system “John Crow”: a structure aimed at expulsion rather than subordination.
Drawing on a newly compiled dataset of documented lynchings, digitized newspaper archives, and spatial analysis, this site reconstructs how violence spread—across towns, along rivers and railroads, and through national print networks.
The interactive maps, timelines, and charts presented here translate the quantitative and spatial arguments of the dissertation into web-based form. Where possible, visualizations correspond directly to analytical figures developed in A Murder of Crows.
Quick Start
Browse lynching records by date, place, and event details.
Read article images, transcriptions, and source citations.
Open charts, maps, timelines, and comparative views.
Access structured data used across the archive.
Ask questions and trace evidence across records.
New to the site? Take the guided tour.
Featured Record
Ping Ling Was Killed During the Tonopah Anti-Chinese Purge
1903-09-17Tonopah, Nevada • Lynching
In September 1903, Ping Ling was killed during a violent attack on Tonopah’s Chinese quarter, part of a broader anti-Chinese purge in the mining camp. <i>The Bremen Enquirer</i> reported that a coroner’s jury charged seventeen men with his murder, including leaders of the local American Labor Union. The <i>Tonopah Bonanza </i> dedicated a full four columns to the riot. Describing the fate of Ping Ling, it said "Ping Ling, however, suffering, bleeding, and bewildered, and probably thinking that his tormentors were still after him, continued his course in the direction of Sodaville, sometimes keeping to the road, and then staggering off into the brush, almost every step he took being marked by splotches of blood" (September 19, 1903). A few days later, <i>The Morning News</i> noted that China was seeking damages for the Chinese “lynched out in Nevada,” showing how quickly the Tonopah outrage became an international issue.
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