Across the South in this era, many Italian immigrants build community with Black people rather than white people. Health professionals in Louisiana and Mississippi attempt to explain yellow fever epidemics by charging Italian immigrants with socializing with Black people, and then "bringing" the illness into immigrant communities and then into white communities. This leads to the lynching of five Italian immigrants in Louisiana. Unlike the many lynchings of Black people, these lynchings are reported in the newspapers, eliciting white outrage.