My sudden morbid fascination with the history of lynching in America as resulted in acquiring this little bit of information
This is mind boggling, particularly since this 84 year immunity for whites in this regard has only been broken 5 years ago.
What I’m curious about, and what I can’t seem to find on the net is what are the facts surrounding the 1913 execution alluded to above?[ Certainly some particularly unusual or aggravating factors were involved.
I’m looking, but I can’t find anything so far either. I’ll post back if I find something. I did stumble across this little nugget while visiting here.
Also, there is much mention of this article by David Margolick, White Dies for Killing Black, For the First Time in Decades (N.Y. Times, September 7, 1991), but I have yet to stumble across it online.
I’d like to see these numbers presented as a percent of the total murders in each case. It’s probably still disproportionate but it would be a better metric.
Haj
Haj: I’m with you on that. Also, I’d like to see the “rest of the story” regarding what was going on in relation to the murderers and victims, both White & Black.
I am not a statistician, unfortunately, but feel free to do the math for the rest of us. I’d start at http://www.census.gov It’s gonna look just as ugly, if not more so, considering that blacks are only a fraction of the population compared to whites.
I’m not saying the data I found is fact, I don’t know that it is. I just found it. However, if it is true, regardless of what happened in 1913, the original premise would be wrong. There would be eleven instances since 1976 to prove it wrong. Since I got at least 6 real hits on Google by using “first time a white man had been executed for a crime against an African-American since 1913,” this would indicate someone was doing some sloppy reporting.
Actually, maybe just ten, if they were counting this execution of Hayes in 1997.
If you have time this site may have an answer
http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/
Other than that, I found this reference.
http://www.thornby.dk/1y/docs/lynch.htm
*
The last execution of white men for killing a black person in Alabama had taken place in 1913 when two outlaws were hung for shooting and killing ablack cockfighting trainer on a mountain in northern Alabama. *
Also, 1913 was aroung the time electrocution was introduced, so these were among the later hangings.
…I searched a bit more, and these are the names (on the first site) of white men hanged in Alabama for murders in 1913. I find this topic interesting too.
489 WATSON WILLIAM WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING MAR 21 1913 1
490 JONES ARTHUR WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING MAR 21 1913 2
491 JONES C. WALTER WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING APR 4 1913 1
492 GILMER ARNOLD WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING APR 4 1913 2
493 GERMAN COLEMAN WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING APR 4 1913 3
495 JONES WALTER 24 WHITE MALE MURDER HANGING APR 4 1913 5
FWIW, the 1928 play “The Front Page” was about a bunch of Chicago reporters waiting for the pending execution of Earl Williams, a hapless white anarchist who had (accidentally but definitely) killed a black cop.
Apologizing in advance for the language: One of the reporters wisecracks that the only reason they were executing the schmuck for what seemed to be a case of waving a gun that went off during a protest was “to get the nigger vote in a town where the nigger vote’s important.”
So, at least two playwrights (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) felt comfortable enough with the concept to put ‘reverse’ racial politics into their work of the '20s.
Now it makes sense. A good gamecock trainer would be extremely valuable to his employer, and would thus have a powerful white patron. Such a man could not be murdered with impunity.
loved that movie (the cary grant one)