After losing the Civil War, their world was in chaos. There was an inherent belief that black men were dangerous, would rape their women, and wreak havoc on their society. Whites at that time thought that if they could control the black population, they could prevent the South from changing. It was feared that Negroes would rise up and be able to vote, own businesses, and generally prosper. They needed African Americans to depend on them and still considered them subhuman. The white supremacists would not accept them as citizens, no matter what the law said. If necessary they would manipulate the laws to work in their favor or circumvent the law altogether. Fear of blacks began to resonate after the end of the Civil War. They could no longer legally keep the black population in chains and subjugation; so they would need to keep them in chains in a metaphorical sense. They implemented Jim Crow laws, but they didn't seem to be effective enough for them. They needed a way to physically express their superiority. They needed a way to control blacks so they wouldn't seek revenge, and lynching provided them with an avenue to instill fear in the black population, the same fear that held them hostage to their evildoers