The Return of Shame

In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois offered his explanation for why Reconstruction was fraught with violence against blacks. “The greatest deterrent to crime, the public opinion of one’s own social caste, was lost,” he wrote, so “the criminal was looked upon as crucified rather than hanged.”

The ultimate deterrent to terrible behavior, he suggested, is shame, whether produced internally by one’s conscience or externally by the condemnation of one’s peers.