American History of Lynchings

Season 23 : No Theme 

Unfortunately, racial equality has been a major battle during the history of the United States. It led to decades of racial lynchings, which some are still trying to erase from history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Famous lynchings in America represent one of the darkest chapters
in the nation's history, with over four thousand, four hundred
documented cases occurring between eighteen seventy seven and nineteen fifty alone,
though lynchings are not limited to that time frame. Those
acts of racial terror weren't random outbursts of violence, but
rather calculated public spectacles designed to enforce racial hierarchy through fear.

(00:26):
Historical lynchings have left an indelible mark on American society,
particularly in the South, where the majority of the atrocities
took place. Unfortunately, many US lynching cases remained unpunished, with
perpetrators often acting with impunity and sometimes even local law
enforcement participation. The brutal nature of those incidents of racial violence,

(00:48):
frequently involving torture, mutilation, and public displays of victims, makes
these stories especially horrifying. Despite efforts to suppress or minimize
this history, recent and historians have meticulously documented these cases,
preserving the truth for future generations. The only way to
learn from our history is to remember it accurately. This

(01:13):
is Monsters. Before we begin, I just want to make

(01:40):
sure you know that my other show, Sinister is back
up and there are three episodes a week. They're dark
stories from history, and if you like this show, you'll
probably like that one. Give it a shot. There are
links in the description. Thanks The murder of fourteen year
old em At Till stands is one of the most
pivotal famous lynchings in America, igniting widespread outrage that helped

(02:03):
catalyze the Civil rights movement. Unlike many historical lynchings that
faded from public memory, Emmett Till's case forced the nation
to confront the brutal reality of racial violence in the
Jim Crow South. Born on July twenty fifth, nineteen forty one,
Emmett Lewis Till grew up in Chicago, Illinois. As a

(02:23):
northern Black youth, Emmett was unaccustomed to the severe racial
segregation he would encounter in Mississippi. During summer vacation. In
August of nineteen fifty five, the teenager traveled to the
Mississippi Delta region to visit relatives near Money, Mississippi. His mother,
Mamie Till, concerned about her son's playful nature, specifically warned

(02:45):
him that white people in the South could react violently
to behavior that was normally tolerated in the North. On
August twenty fourth, nineteen fifty five, Emmett and several teenagers
visited Bryant's grocery and meat market after a long day
warld working in the cotton fields. What happened inside remains disputed,
but Emmett allegedly spoke to or whistled at twenty one

(03:08):
year old Carol and Bryant, the white married proprietor. That interaction,
however innocent, violated the unwritten code of behavior for black
males interacting with white females in the segregated South. Subsequently,
in the early morning hours of August twenty eighth, Roy Bryant,
Carolyn's husband, and his half brother J. W. Milam, forced

(03:30):
their way into Moses Wright's home where Emmett was staying.
Armed with pistols, they abducted the boy at gunpoint. They
brutally beat him, gouged out one of his eyes, and
shot him in the head before tying his body to
a large metal fan with barbed wire and dumping it
in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Emmett Till's mutilated

(03:51):
and bloated body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
Emmett's body was returned to Chicago, where his mother made
the courageous decision to hold an open casket funeral. The
open coffin funeral held by Maimy exposed the world to
more than her son's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused
attention on not only American racism in the barbarism of Lyncheng,

(04:14):
but also the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy. Tens
of thousands attended the funeral or viewed his open casket.
The trial of Roy Bryant and JW. Milam began on
September nineteenth, nineteen fifty five. Despite Moses Wright's extraordinary courage
in standing up in court and identifying the two white

(04:36):
men who had kidnapped Emmit, an all white, all male
jury acquitted them after deliberating for merely sixty seven minutes,
protected from double jeopardy. Bryant and Milam later admitted in
a nineteen fifty six interview with Look magazine that they
had tortured and murdered Emmitt till, selling their confession for
four thousand dollars. The murder became a catalyst for the

(04:59):
civil rights movement. Just one hundred days after his death,
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seed on a
Montgomery bus. When asked later why she didn't move to
the back, she responded, quote, I thought about Emmett Till
and I just couldn't go back. The Women's Political Council
called for a citywide bus boycott and enlisted the help

(05:20):
of a young minister named Martin Luther King Junior. The
brutal lynching of Emmett Till forced Americans nationwide to confront
the reality of racial violence in the South, creating what
Joyce Ladner termed the quote Emmett Till generation, young African
Americans inspired to join the growing movement for civil rights.

(05:41):
Among the most thoroughly documented famous lynchings in America, the
nineteen sixteen killing of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas became
known as the Waco Horror due to its exceptionally public
and brutal nature. Jesse Washington was a seventeen year old
African American farm hand who worked on the farm of
George and Lucy Fryar and Robinson, Texas, a small community

(06:04):
near Waco. Described as illiterate and possibly intellectually disabled, Jesse
had been employed at the Friar's farm for approximately five
months before the incident. On May eighth, nineteen sixteen, Lucy Fryar,
a fifty three year old white woman, was found bludgeoned
to death in the doorway of her farm's seed shed

(06:24):
with signs of sexual assault. Local men quickly suspected Jesse,
as one claimed to have seen him near the Friar
house shortly before the discovery of Lucy's body. Sheriff Samuel
Fleming and his deputies arrested Jesse that same night, finding
him wearing blood stained overalls, which he claimed resulted from
a nosebleed. Following questioning without legal representation or parental presence,

(06:49):
Jesse eventually confessed to killing Lucy Fryar after an argument
about her mules. The confession was published in Waco newspapers
the following day. On May eighteenth, nineteen sixteen, Jesse Washington's
trial began in the McLellan County Courthouse before a packed
audience of over two thousand spectators. The proceedings lasted merely

(07:11):
one hour, with the jury deliberating for just four minutes
before delivering a guilty verdict. Before court officers could remove
Jesse spectators seized him and dragged him outside, where a
growing mob waited. What followed was one of the most
horrific public spectacles in American history. The mob stripped to

(07:31):
the teen, beat him repeatedly, and placed a chain around
his neck. They dragged him towards Wacos City Hall, where
a bonfire had been prepared. In front of an estimated
crowd of ten thousand to fifteen thousand people, including the mayor,
police chief, and children released from school for lunch, Jesse
was tortured, mutilated, and burned alive. Particularly disturbing was the

(07:56):
celebratory atmosphere among spectators, with reports of shuts of delight
as they watched a human being be burned alive. The
mob repeatedly raised and lowered his body into the flames.
Over approximately two hours after his death, participants collected souvenirs,
including his fingers, toes, teeth, and even genitalia. His charred

(08:20):
remains were later dragged through town behind an automobile. That
was not an act of justice. That was an act
of torture carried out by severely disturbed individuals. The priority
was not to get justice for Lucy Fryar. It was
to cause immense suffering on a human being, and that
pain was celebrated by people who should be put into

(08:42):
the category of worst criminal murderers in history. The lynching
of Jesse Washington marked a turning point in how such
atrocities were perceived nationally. Professional photographer Fred Gildersleeve captured images
of the lynching in progress and created post cards of
the event. Those rare photographs documenting a lynching in progress

(09:05):
became powerful evidence in anti lynching campaigns. Following the incident,
newspapers across America and abroad condemned the lyncheng. The New
York Times stated that quote in no other land, even
pretending to be civilized, could a man be burned to
death in the streets of a considerable city amid the
savage exultation of its inhabitants. Even Southern newspapers that had

(09:30):
previously defended lynching's criticized the barbarity of the Waco mob.
Most significantly, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
or NAACP, launched a full investigation of the lyncheng. Author
Web du Bois published a detailed report with photographs in
The Crisis magazine, calling it the Waco horror. The NAACP

(09:55):
utilized that case as the cornerstone in their campaign for
federal anti lynching legislation. Despite widespread condemnation, no one was
ever prosecuted for Jesse's murder. The brutal killing of Mary
Turner in May of nineteen eighteen remains one of the
most horrific famous lynchings in America, notable for its exceptional

(10:16):
cruelty toward a pregnant woman who simply spoke out against injustice.
The case exemplifies how racial violence extended beyond just black
men to target women and even unborn children. Mary Graham
was born in December of eighteen ninety nine to Perry
Graham and Elizabeth Johnson, a sharecropping family. In February of

(10:38):
nineteen seventeen, at age seventeen, she married Hazel Turner, who
went by Hayes, in Colquitt County, Georgia. The couple had
two children before marriage, and subsequently moved to Brooks County, Georgia,
where they worked for plantation owner Hampton Smith. Smith had
a reputation for mistreating workers, often bailing black people out

(10:58):
of jail for minor effenase and forcing them to work
off their debts on his property. After Mary Turner was
severely beaten by Smith and her husband threatened retaliation, Hayes
was sent to work on a chain gang. On May sixteenth,
nineteen eighteen, Hampton Smith was murdered by Sidney Johnson, a
black worker who had been forced to work off a

(11:20):
fine for quote unquote rolling dice. That incident triggered a
week long rampage that resulted in at least eleven African
Americans being lynched in Brooks and Lowndes Counties. Hayes Turner,
though uninvolved in Smith's murder, was among those targeted after
his lynching. On May eighteenth, Mary Turner, eight months pregnant

(11:42):
at the time, publicly denounced her husband's killing and threatened
illegal action against the perpetrators. Enraged by her defiance, a
mob of several hundred people captured her the following day
near Fulsome Bridge at the Little River. What followed was horrifying.
The mob eyed her ankles, hung her upside down from

(12:02):
a tree, doused her clothes with gasoline and cetera blaze.
While still alive, Mary's abdomen was cut open with a
butcher knife, causing her unborn child to fall to the ground.
A member of the mob crushed the baby's head with
his foot, how very pro life of him. Finally, her
body was riddled with hundreds of bullets. Mary Turner and

(12:26):
her baby were buried near the site, with only a
whiskey bottle marking the grave. The lynching of Mary Turner
and her unborn child prompted national outrage. Ten days after
the incident, the Colored Federated Clubs of Augusta sent a
resolution to President Woodrow Wilson requesting justice. Moreover, the case

(12:48):
became instrumental in the NAACP's campaign for federal anti lynching legislation,
prompting Missouri Congressman Leonidas Dyer to craft the nineteen twenty
two Dire Anti Lynch Bill. Although the bill passed the
US House of Representatives in nineteen twenty two, it did
not become law until December of twenty eighteen because of

(13:10):
opposition from Southern Democratic senators. Now, let's have a quick
history lesson about the ideologies of American Democrat and Republican parties. Basically,
what you know of their ideologies today should be reversed
for anything that happened prior to the Great Depression, so
if someone tells you that Republicans wanted to free the

(13:32):
slaves or that Democrats created Jim Crow, you can basically
switch the names of the parties. Prior to the Great Depression,
rich businessmen took control of the Republican Party that had
been historically for individual rights and made it about prioritizing
profit over human life. That was fine until the economy

(13:53):
crashed in nineteen thirty two and a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
who ran on a platform of inner in the crisis
with financial assistance, won in a landslide, But there still
wasn't a complete split in the ideologies between the parties
at the time. The split was between the North and
the South. Representatives from Southern states, both Democrat and Republican,

(14:17):
opposed racial equality, while representatives from northern states, both Democrat
and Republican, supported racial equality. It wasn't until the Civil
Rights Act was signed into law by Democratic President Lyndon B.
Johnson in nineteen sixty four did the parties really solidify
their stance on civil rights. During that time, Republican Canada

(14:40):
Buried Goldwater publicly opposed the new law, arguing that it
expanded the power of the federal government to a dangerous level.
That history of the Democrat and Republican parties is referred
to as the Great Switch, and it should be kept
in mind when talking about what each party supported in
the past. Throughout the decades following her murder, Mary Turner's

(15:03):
story continued to resonate in letters to Presidents Roosevelt and others.
Citizens referred to her case as evidence of America's failure
to address lynching. In twenty ten, a historical marker was
placed near the lynching site, though it had to be
removed in twenty twenty due to repeated vandalism and was
temporarily replaced with a large steel cross, because again, there

(15:27):
are people out there who are bitter that we consider
lynching a black spot on American history. Currently, organizations like
the Mary Turner Project continue working to preserve her memory
and promote racial healing. The nineteen fifteen murder of Leo
Frank stands out as the only documented lynching of a
Jewish person among famous lynchings in America, highlighting how anti

(15:51):
Semitism intersected with racial violence history in the early twentieth century.
Leo Max Frank born in Texas and raised in New York,
earned a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University before moving
to Atlanta in nineteen oh eight. As superintendent of the
National Pencil Factory and President of Atlanta has been a

(16:12):
Breath Chapter, Frank represented the Northern Jewish business presence in
the South. On April twenty sixth to nineteen thirteen, thirteen
year old factory worker Mary Fagan was found murdered in
the factory basement after visiting to collect her one dollar
and twenty cent paycheck. Frank, the last person to acknowledge

(16:33):
seeing her alive, became the prime suspect despite then evidence.
Following a sensational trial where crowds outside the courthouse cheered
the prosecutor daily, Frank was convicted and sentenced to death.
After multiple failed appeals reaching the Supreme Corps. Georgia Governor
John Slayton reviewed over ten thousand pages of documentation and

(16:56):
commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison in June of
nineteen fifteen. Furious at that decision, protesters marched on the
Governor's mansion, forcing him to declare martial law. On August sixteenth,
nineteen fifteen, a group of twenty five prominent citizens calling
themselves the Knights of Mary Fagin, kidnapped Frank from the

(17:17):
state prison farm in Millageville. Frank had previously survived a
throat slashing by another prisoner. The lynch mob drove him
approximately one hundred miles or one hundred and sixty kilometers
to Marietta, Mary Fagin's hometown. At seven o five am
on August seventeenth, they hanged him from an oak tree.

(17:38):
Within ninety minutes, a crowd of roughly three thousand people gathered,
with some taking pieces of Frank's clothing as souvenirs. The
lynching had far reaching consequences for US lynching cases in
American society. Notably, the men who lynched Frank, including a
former governor, state legislator, and other prominent citizens, were never

(17:59):
prosper at ed after that. Those same individuals subsequently gathered
atop Stone Mountain to burn across and revive the Ku
Klux Klan. Simultaneously, the case spurred the formation of the
Anti Defamation League to combat anti Semitism. For Georgia's Jewish community,
the incident created a climate of fear that persisted for decades.

(18:23):
Many Jews retreated from public life and approximately half of
Georgia's three thousand Jewish residents fled the state. In nineteen
eighty six, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted
Frank a posthumous pardon, acknowledging the state's failure to protect
him and bring his killers to justice. That pardon came
after a Lonzo Man, a former office boy, revealed in

(18:46):
nineteen eighty two that he had seen the factory janitor
carrying Mary Fagin's body on the day of her murder.
The Will Brown case stands out among famous lynchings in
America as a horrific incident within the Red Summer of
nineteen nineteen, when racial violence erupted across dozens of American cities.

(19:06):
His murder exemplifies how false accusations coupled with political manipulation
could unleash deadly mob violence. Will Brown was a forty
one year old African American laborer who worked as a
coal hustler in Omaha, Nebraska. Several accounts mentioned his severe rheumatism,
which likely limited his physical mobility. His health condition made

(19:30):
the accusations against him even more doubtful. Will lived in
a house at twenty four, eighteen South fifth Street with
a white woman named Virginia Jones and another black man,
Henry Johnson. On September twenty fifth, nineteen nineteen, a white
woman named Agnes Loebeck and her fiance Milton Hoffman reported

(19:50):
being assaulted. Agnes accused Will of sexually assaulting her, consequently
prompting his arrest. Importantly, political tensions heightened the the situation.
Is Tom Denison, Omaha's powerful political boss, utilized his newspaper,
The Omaha Bee, to inflame racial hatred with sensationalist headlines,
calling Will a black beast. On September twenty eighth, a

(20:14):
mob estimated between five thousand and fifteen thousand people surrounded
the Douglas County Courthouse where Will was being held. As
the situation escalated, rioters set fire to the courthouse, preventing
firefighters from extinguishing the flames. Inside the burning building. Will
reportedly pleaded quote, I am innocent. I never did it,

(20:37):
my god, I am innocent. Once captured by the mob,
Will was beaten, unconscious, stripped naked, and hanged from a
telephone pole at eighteenth in Harney Streets. Hundreds of people
fired guns at his body. Subsequently, his corpse was tied
behind an automobile dragged through downtown streets, burned with few

(21:00):
pool from red danger lamps and pieces of rope were
sold as souvenirs for ten cents each. Following the lynching,
the US Army deployed seventy officers in one two hundred
and twenty two enlisted men, the largest military response to
any racial ride of the period. Only after the public
demanded action, were approximately one hundred and twenty participants apprehended

(21:23):
and charged with crimes ranging from murder to arsen Still,
nobody was convicted, and eventually everyone was released without surveying
any time. The Duluth lynchings represent the northernmost documented case
among famous lynchings in America, showing that racial violence was
not confined to the South. Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and

(21:45):
Isaac McGee were young African American men in their early
twenties working as laborers with the John Robinson Circus, which
was performing in Duluth, Minnesota. The men were part of
a traveling workforce in a city where racial tension was high,
despite black residents comprising less than one percent of Duluth's
population in nineteen twenty Indeed, many white workers in northern

(22:09):
industrial cities resented the presence of black workers during this
era of black migration. On June fourteenth, nineteen twenty, nineteen
year old Irene Tuscan and eighteen year old James Sullivan,
both white, attended the circus. Afterward, they claimed six black
circus workers robbed them at gunpoint and sexually assaulted Irene.

(22:32):
The next morning, Duluth Police Chief John Murphy arrested several
African American men, but a doctor's examination had found no
evidence of sexual assault on Irene. As news spread, Lewis
Don Dino organized an angry mob by driving around town
calling people to join what he termed a necktie party.

(22:52):
The crowd estimated between five thousand and ten thousand, people
broke into the police station using bricks and clubs. Commissioner
of Public Safety William Rnion instructed officers not to stop
the rioters forcefully. The mob conducted a mock trial, declaring
the men guilty, then dragged Elias, Elmer and Isaac to

(23:13):
a lamp post at First Street and Second Avenue, where
they were stripped, beaten, and strung up. The horrific scene
included Isaac McGee being hanged twice after his rope broke. Afterwards,
photographs showing smiling white spectators with the victim's bodies were
made into souvenir postcards. The Minnesota National Guard arrived to

(23:36):
secure the city and protect remaining black prisoners. News of
the lynching spread nationwide, generating both outrage and support for
the mob's actions. A grand jury indighted thirty seven white men,
yet merely three were convicted of rioting, with none convicted
of murder. Conversely, seven African Americans were indicted for rape.

(23:59):
That travesty prompted activist Nellie Francis to lobby for anti
lynching legislation, which Minnesota passed on April twenty first, nineteen
twenty one. For decades, the lynchings were largely forgotten until
nineteen ninety one, when the victim's graves received headstones reading
quote deterred but not defeated. In two thousand and three,

(24:22):
a memorial honoring Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGee
was dedicated across from the lynching site. These cases represent
merely a fraction of the racial terror that plagued American
society for generations, and is still celebrated by some. The
cases share common elements racism, intolerance, and a severe lack

(24:44):
of education. They came into reality due to false accusations,
denial of due process, extraordinary cruelty, and almost complete impunity
for perpetrators. Those are a denial of rights that every
human being who is standing on American soil gets, and nobody,
not a single person or an angry mob, has the

(25:05):
right to be judge, jury, and executioner. If you're outraged
by any crime but okay with these examples of violent
vigilante justice, then you're no better than the people you
claim are criminals. Wanting a human being to be tortured
and suffer unimaginable pain is not the desire of a
good person. The United States was founded as a melting pot,

(25:27):
so thinking that people with different origins, cultures, or skin
colors shouldn't be living in the country is profoundly on
American Carrying out unspeakable acts on other human beings because
you don't like that they're different just makes you another
monster that deserves to be locked up. If you're the
victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to someone for help.

(25:49):
Please talk to your local shelter. Call the National Domestic
Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine nine safe.
That's one eight hundred seven ninety nine seven two three three,
or you can go to the hotline dot org to
chat with someone online. If you're having feelings of harming
yourself or someone else, or even just need someone to
talk to, please contact your local mental health facility call

(26:12):
nine one one, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline
by simply dialing nine eight eight in the United States.
They're available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
and we'll talk to you about any mental health issue
you might be facing. If you're a member of the
LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression, or are
in need of any support, please contact the LGBT National

(26:34):
Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four three four
five six four, or go to LGBT Hotline dot org.
Thanks so much for letting me tell you this story.
If you're a fan of true crime, you can subscribe
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but you can check it out. If you like interesting

(26:54):
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(27:15):
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Thanks again, and be safe.