When one thinks of frontier justice or violent lynchings in the United States, it conjures the specter of lawlessness in the old West or the anti-black intolerance of the Deep South. This is inevitable, not only because of the magnitude of such atrocities, but because of the attention brought to them by modern American society, which largely sprung from the political machines of the victorious North after 1865.

Historical violence outside these categories, such as the New York’s Draft riots, is not censored, but neither are they given as serious attention. Of the lesser know violent events in America's past, one in particular attracted my attention several years ago. Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I spent time in both Public and Catholic schools. Never once did they mention to me that the largest mass lynching in American history was directed against Southern Italians, Sicilians specifically.