Arne,

The statistics quoted are for the years between 1882 and 1968. By that point (certainly after 1890) the vast majority of the United States was under civil law and "frontier justice" was largely a thing of the past. If you were comparing statistics from the years 1790 to 1890, adjusted for population growth, they would be more meaningful but still irrelevant. Vigilante hangings (which were anything but lynchings as there was generally at least some semblance of a trial if not a lawfully appointed one) simply occured at a different point in time for a completely different reason than the lynchings those that link purports to be reported by the Tuskegee Institute. One attempted to maintain law and order where civil law was not yet effective. The other was an evil attempt to surpress black civil libertities. Look at the examples to see clearly. At the time cited above for the lynchings in Waco the city was the headquarters of the Texas Rangers, the state police, and seat to a district court. Those lynchings were anything but vigilante justice.

As to connecting racism to the song, no where in the song are the words "lynch", "vigilante" or "blacks" used. They came up when someone with an over active imagination thought the song was racist and others responded by pointing out what they thought it was about. Any reasonable American would know the song makes a reference to rough frontier justice in the same way any Brit would know that the swear word "bloody" refers to Mary Queen of Scotts and Queen Elizabeth and not any of a number of other bloody periods of British history. And as any Irishman would know that the U2 song, "Bloody Sunday" has nothing to do with Mary Queen of Scotts.