'White Fright' author discusses historical lynch mobs and the attack on the Capitol

Historian Jane Dailey was saddened by the events in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, but the riot at the U.S. Capitol did not seem unfamiliar to her.

In this new episode of the Modern Law Library podcast, Dailey discusses her new book, White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America’s Racist History, and what America’s history with lynch mobs can teach us about the attack on the Capitol.

She and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles also discuss how the end of Reconstruction impacts us today and several key court cases that influenced the way courts considered racial identity.

In This Podcast

Jane Dailey

Jane Dailey is an associate professor with the University of Chicago in the department of history and the law school. Her research and teaching focuses on U.S. history since the Civil War with an emphasis on the post-emancipation South and the political and legal history of civil rights. She is the author of Before Jim Crow: The Politics of Race in Postemancipation Virginia, Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights, with Glenda E. Gilmore and Bryant Simon, and The Age of Jim Crow: A Norton Documentary History. White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America’s Racist History is her newest book.