What is the main idea of this document? I want a short answer that is a couple of sentences.

Document 3: Photograph of Lynching (1920) Lvnching From the 1890s to the 1920s, African Americans in the South lived in constant terror of being lynched. The word "lynchinW' describes an act of white supremacist terror in which a mob of angry white men and women kidnaps a black man that they suspect of violating the racial code of the South. Often, black men were lynched for making sexualize comments about white women, or even for just looking at them for too long. Something black men were lynched for refusing to take their hat off and move to the edge of the sidewalk when a white family passed by. A lynching usually involved beating the victim and then hanging him from a tree or lamppost for all to see. This was meant to serve as a warning to other African Americans who thought about going against white society in any way. Many instances involved cuts to or mutilation of the male victim's genitalia. Even though the act of lynching involved the brutal murder of a black man without being convicted of a crime, the local and state governments in the South refused to arrest and prosecute those suspected of lynching an African America. Often, the men who led the "lynch mobs" were the leading citizens of a given town, like the Sherriff or even the Ma or.