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Note: Images of the original pages are available through Villanova University Digital Library. See http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:354895

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics .

The spelling of the U.S. state name as "Louisana" has not been corrected as it is consistently used for all 5 references to the state.

THE FIGHT AGAINST LYNCHING

Anti-Lynching Work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for the Year Nineteen Eighteen

Reprinted from the Ninth Annual Report National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 70 Fifth Avenue, New York

April, 1919

Price Ten Cents

PRESIDENT WILSON'S LYNCHING AND MOB VIOLENCE PRONOUNCEMENT .

LYNCHINGS OF MAY, 1918, IN BROOKS AND LOWNDES COUNTIES, GEORGIA; an investigation by the N. A. A. C. P.; 8 pages.

THE BURNING OF ELL PERSON AT MEMPHIS, TENN.; an account taken from the Memphis daily papers of May 22, 23, 24 and June 3, 1917; 4 pages.

THIRTY YEARS OF LYNCHING IN THE UNITED STATES, 1889-1918, April, 1919; circa 100 pages, fifteen cents.

ANTI-LYNCHING COMMITTEE

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

FOREWORD

The anti-lynching work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is carried on as a part of the activities of the Association under the direction of the Association's Anti-Lynching Committee, whose names appear elsewhere.

This work was made possible in the beginning through an initial contribution of ,000 made by Mr. Philip G. Peabody, of Boston, Mass., in the fall of 1916, toward a fund of ,000 to be used in a vigorous campaign against the lynching evil. The Association's president, Mr. Moorfield Storey, contributed a second ,000 and as the result of a wide-spread appeal an amount slightly in excess of ,000 over and above the cost of the appeal was subscribed. The Association is endeavoring to raise approximately ,000 annually to carry on this work.

The principal activities of the anti-lynching campaign include:

Investigation of as many of the lynchings as possible.

Publication and distribution of the investigator's findings and of other data concerning lynching.

Inquiries and protests whenever lynchings occur, to governors, sheriffs and other state and local authorities by telegraph and letter, and, in selected cases, amounting in the aggregate to a considerable number, appeals to leading chambers of commerce urging them to demand that their governors and other officials take legal action against lynchers.

Press publicity of such inquiries and protests and of the results of the Association's investigations and other matter of current "news" interest in order thus to create public sentiment against lynching.

Research into the facts regarding past lynchings.

Collection of press and editorial comment on lynching in general and on particular lynchings.

Study of causes and remedies for lynching.

Efforts to secure specific legislation to prevent lynching.

Generally to keep the evil of lynching before the American people as a live issue and to offer a constructive program for its abolition.

The Association, through its president and secretary, acting for the Anti-Lynching Committee, took the initiative in promoting a National Conference on Lynching which will be held in New York City on the fifth and sixth of May, 1919, for the purpose of focusing the attention of the nation on this blot upon America's fair name and of working out an effective, constructive program for its abolition. This conference has been called by one hundred and twenty leaders of American opinion, it being judged best that the conference be called by distinguished Americans rather than by the Association itself, or the Anti-Lynching Committee, in order that the appeal might not be hampered in the minds of anyone by its association with the work of an organization devoted to the interests of the Negro, and to which there might be opposition on that account.

Among the signers of this call are the attorney general of the United States, five governors, one of them, Governor Hugh M. Dorsey of Georgia, a southern governor, four ex-governors, one of these, Hon. Emmet O'Neal of Alabama, from the South, two ex-attorney generals of the United States, nine university presidents, the president of the American Bar Association, a number of leading lawyers of national reputation of the country, including Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes, Cardinal Gibbons and leading churchmen and representative colored leaders. Nineteen of the signers of the call are representatives leaders of southern white liberal opinion.

The Association urgently appeals for financial support in its constructive efforts to stamp out lynching in the United States.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

THE FIGHT AGAINST LYNCHING

"I therefore very earnestly and solemnly beg that the governors of all the states, the law officers of every community, and above all, the men and women of every community in the United States, all who revere America and wish to keep her name without stain or reproach, will co-operate, not passively merely, but actively and watchfully to make an end of this disgraceful evil. It cannot live where the community does not countenance it."

July 26, 1918. WOODROW WILSON.

COMMENT BY THE WAY

EXTENT OF THE LYNCHING EVIL

The records show that from 1885 to 1917, both inclusive, approximately 3,740 lynchings have occurred in the United States. Two thousand seven hundred and forty-three of this number have had colored persons as victims and nine hundred and ninety-seven have been white. The relative percentages of white and colored victims for the 33 years covered is 26 per cent, white; 74 per cent, colored.

Assuming that the record for the earlier years is less accurate than for the later period, because of many factors , the figures for the 18 years, 1900 to 1917, both inclusive, are given. Fourteen hundred and twenty-seven lynchings are recorded for the period named. Twelve hundred and forty-one of these were Negroes; 186 were white. The relative decrease of white victims is marked.

The victims of the East St. Louis mob riots of July, 1917, are excluded, as are those of the mob riot at Chester, Pa. The number of victims at East St. Louis has been estimated at as many as 175. In the report of the Congressional Investigating Committee the Committee says that "at least 39 Negroes and 8 white people were killed outright, and hundreds of Negroes were wounded and maimed."

During 1918, 63 Negroes and 4 white persons were lynched, as established by well authenticated evidence. The Executive Office has been advised of a probable increase of this figure by 12 cases of which it is said that confirmation of lynching can be obtained, but, as the Executive Office has been unable to investigate these cases, they have, of course, been excluded from our figures.

An Association staff member, while in the South studying special problems, was informed by reliable colored people in Georgia that twelve unreported cases have occurred since the Association investigated the Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia, lynching orgy of May, 1918, and that the only apparent effect in Georgia of the President's lynching pronouncement of July 26th last, has been an apparently concerted agreement on the part of press and authorities to keep all news regarding lynchings out of the Georgia press. Lending some color to this charge, is the fact that, so far as we are aware, no Georgia daily has at any time since May, 1918, published any account of the investigation made by the Association or of the fact that 17 names of mob leaders were put in the hands of Governor Dorsey, despite the considerable press comment in the press of other states.

One of our Texas branches reported the case of one alleged victim of a mob who was buried secretly and no publicity given to the facts. The branch's president had written to the acting-governor requesting an investigation of the circumstances. Finally, some lynchings which do not get into the press, are not carried beyond the immediate neighborhood, sometimes a very small one, unless there is some unusual feature to distinguish the event.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE 1918 LYNCHINGS

During 1918 lynchings have occurred in the following states:

OFFENSES CHARGED AGAINST THE 1918 VICTIMS

SPECIAL FEATURES OF LYNCHINGS

Five of the Negro victims have been women. Two colored men were burned at the stake before death; four Negroes were burned after death; three Negroes, aside from those burned at the stake, were tortured before death; in one case the victim's dead body was carried into town on the running board of an automobile and thrown into a public park where "it was viewed by thousands;" one Negro victim was captured and handed to the officers of the law by Negroes themselves. A mother and her five children were lynched by a Texas mob, the mother having been shot as she was attempting to drag the bodies of her four dead sons from their burning home at daybreak, the house having been fired by the mob. The crime in this case was "alleged conspiracy to avenge" the killing of another son by officers who had come to arrest him for "evading the draft law." This latter case has not been classified as a lynching.

Most atrocious of all, so far as the community was concerned, was the five days' orgy in Brooks and Lowndes Counties, which has been made the occasion for special publicity and special efforts by the Association, to which reference is made on page 9 of this report. In that case the particularly vicious brutality of the mob went beyond what one is prepared to expect from Georgia mobs--and one expects a good deal in the way of "cruel and unusual punishments" from them. The horrible cruelties visited upon Mary Turner, an eight month's pregnant woman, are recited in the investigation published of our investigator's findings.

In two cases the lynchings were carried out in the court house yard and in one of these picture post card photos were sold on the streets at 25 cents each.

TAKEN FROM PEACE OFFICERS AND JAILS

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