To This.
One of the books I am currently reading is AND THE DEAD SHALL ALSO RISE by Steve Oney.
The book tells the factional story that happen in 1913 to Mary Phagan, 13, a Marietta, Georgia, resident, who was rape and murdered at the pencil factory in Atlanta when she dropped by to get paid, and the story of "who did it"
The Jewish proprietor of the pencil factory, Leo Frank, was tried, convicted and sent to prison. In 1915 after he was in prison, a group of Marietta citizens in a car-cade drove to the prison in Milledgeville and literally broke in the prison, bodily carried Leo Frank out, brought him to Marietta and lynched him.
Now, it is believed they hung the wrong man.
To cover the story at the beginning for the Atlanta Journal was a 20 year old police reporter, with plenty of skepticism, by the name of Harold W. Ross. Harold Ross was the son of a Boulder, Colorado, mining engineer. He worked at the Salt Lake City Tribune and several odd-jobs before coming to Atlanta. He knew how to write to keep the public interested.
In 1925 Ross found THE NEW YORKER.
4 comments:
I've always intended to read up more on the Leo Frank lynching. Hope you can share some of your thoughts when you're done reading the book.
Button,
I will.
I'm glad to hear from you.
Oh, there was a TV movie about this incident many years ago. I remember watching it with my mom and wondering why people hate Jews so much. If you can't blame the blacks, there are always the Jews. (I think the movie posited that the janitor did the crime.)
Suzanne,
You have a good memory. Years later the janitor confessed to the crime and Governor Jimmy Carter pardoned Leo Frank, post -? .
Interesting, the people in Marietta who engineered the lynching were Marietta's elite. An ex-mayor that was son of U.S. Senator Clay and others of high importance.
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