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
“Hoodlum Riots” Destroyed Chinese Property and Lynched four Chinese Men
1877-07-23San Francisco, California • Expulsion
On July 23, 1877, San Francisco was rocked by violent anti-Chinese rioting. Mobs of unemployed white workers destroyed Chinese-owned businesses and lynched at least four Chinese men. The San Francisco Examiner reported that “pestilent hoodlum gangs committed wanton and atrocious deeds of violence, incendiarism—if not also of murder—in portions of the city. Several Chinese wash-houses were attacked and pillaged and set fire, and in one house, which was consumed, the bodies of two Chinamen were found” (July 25, 1877). The same report insisted that members of Anti-Coolie Clubs were not responsible for the violence. However, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that an Anti-Coolie meeting was “held at half-past 8 o’clock in Hamilton Hall, where inflammatory speeches were delivered.Banners read “White Labor Must Rule,” and shouts of “Down with the Coolies!” followed” (July 26, 1877). Both reports noted that the loss of property and life in the Chinese community was immense.
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