Lynch Law in Georgia

by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

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[CHAPTER: I.] [ II.] [ III.] [ IV.]

The city of Newnan, GA is many times spelled Newman, Ga.

(Ebook transcriber’s note.)

Lynch Law
in Georgia.

BY
IDA B. WELLS=BARNETT
==========
A Six-Weeks’ Record in the Center of Southern Civilization,
As Faithfully Chronicled by the “Atlanta Journal”
and the “Atlanta Constitution.”

ALSO THE FULL REPORT OF LOUIS P. LE VIN,

The Chicago Detective Sent to Investigate the Burning of
Samuel Hose, the Torture and Hanging of Elijah Strickland,
the Colored Preacher, and the Lynching
of Nine Men for Alleged Arson.
————
This Pamphlet is Circulated by Chicago Colored Citizens.
2939 Princeton Avenue, Chicago.

CONSIDER THE FACTS.

During six weeks of the months of March and April just past, twelve colored men were lynched in Georgia, the reign of outlawry culminating in the torture and hanging of the colored preacher, Elijah Strickland, and the burning alive of Samuel Wilkes, alias Hose, Sunday, April 23, 1899.

The real purpose of these savage demonstrations is to teach the Negro that in the South he has no rights that the law will enforce. Samuel Hose was burned to teach the Negroes that no matter what a white man does to them, they must not resist. Hose, a servant, had killed Cranford, his employer. An example must be made. Ordinary punishment was deemed inadequate. This Negro must be burned alive. To make the burning a certainty the charge of outrage was invented, and added to the charge of murder. The daily press offered reward for the capture of Hose and then openly incited the people to burn him as soon as caught. The mob carried out the plan in every savage detail.

Of the twelve men lynched during that reign of unspeakable barbarism, only one was even charged with an assault upon a woman. Yet Southern apologists justify their savagery on the ground that Negroes are lynched only because of their crimes against women.