In the period after Reconstruction, racial violence rose in the state, reaching a peak at the end of the 19th century and extending into the difficult economic years of the 1920s and 1930s. According to the Equal Justice Institute's 2015 report, "Lynching in America: Confronting Racial Terror", from 1877 to 1950, Madison County had 16 lynchings in this period, the 6th highest of any county in the state. The county's economic and population growth was stagnant from the 1880s and for several decades into the early 20th century.