The killing became '' a defining moment in the history of racial violence in the United States , '' and helped turn sentiment against lynching , wrote William D. Carrigan , an associate professor of history at Rowan University in Glassboro , N.J. , in a second new book studying the case , '' The Making of a Lynching Culture : Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas 1836-1916 '' -LRB- University of Illinois Press -RRB- , published last November .