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UMI A Beil & Howell Infonnation Company 300 North Zed) Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 “ERADICATING THIS EVIL”; WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN ANTI-LYNCHING MOVEMENT, 1892-1940 DISSERTATION presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree o f Doctor o f Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Mary Jane Brown, B A , M .A ***** The Ohio State University 1998 Dissertation Commitee: Approved by Susan Hartmann, Advisor Leila Rupp Warren Van Tine Susan Hartmann Department o f History tJMI Number: 9833952 UMI Microform 9833952 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 ABSTRACT Between 1892 and 1940, more than three thousand people were lynched in the United States. Most of those lynched were African American males, and most lynchings occurred in the South. Lynching reflected a determination on the part of white southerners to keep African Americans in a state as close to slavery as possible. White supremacy, enforced by lynching, effectively kept black Americans from political, social and economic advancement. To justify mob violence, white southerners claimed that lynching was necessary in order to keep black men from raping white women. They further justified the crime by declaring that courts were too slow in meting out justice, and that the black community shielded criminals from law enforcement authorities. Those theories gained wide acceptance in the South and were commonly accepted in the North as well. In the 1890s, black women began a protest against lynching that eventually swelled into a sizable movement. Ida B Wells, one of the first anti-lynching advocates, was an outspoken, militant crusader who attacked the theory of white women’s protection by proving with statistics that most men who were lynched were never accused of rape, but were hung for a variety of offenses, including trivial offenses that were merely social transgressions at most. Wells systematically formulated a strategy of investigation and exposure to fight against lynching that was eventually adopted by all anti-lynching activists. The founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 drew women of both races into the anti-lynching fight as the association made their campaign against lynching a priority. In the 1920s. the NAACP began a two decade battle for federal anti-lynching legislation, a battle they never succeeded in winning, but that brought the spotlight of public scrutiny to lynching and publicized its horrors. Women were instrumental in the 1930s drives for federal legislation and large women’s organizations, such as the YWCA and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, became committed supporters of a federal law. In the 1930s, a large group of southern white women organized under the leadership of Jessie Daniel Ames to reject the protection that lynching supposedly offered in their name. Organized as the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, the women were opposed to a federal law, but sought to eradicate lynching through education and by engaging the support of local law officials. The decline in lynching by the late 1930s was the result of a combination of social and political factors; but women anti-lynching activists had an undeniable impact on helping bring about the decline of lynching. Ill To Don Brown, my husband, friend, and partner in life for his confidence in me, his encouragement, his great wit and sense of humor. To my children and their mates, Paul & Khisha, Kathleen & Wade, Quinn, Erin and Megan, for being wonderful, thoughtful, and good; and to Austin and Olivia who have captured my heart, and who, with their chubby arms and wet kisses, show us all glimpses of a future that is filled with bright promises. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor. Dr. Susan Hartmann, for her time, patience, suggestions and valuable direction in this dissertation. I wish also to thank Dr. Warren Van Tine and Dr. Leila Rupp for agreeing to serve as members of my committee and for giving generously of their time. My appreciation also goes to Jan Wagner of The Ohio State University Library, and the staff of Worthington Public Library who were at all times helpful and interested in my project. Dona Reasor was my sounding board who at all times provided encouragement, prodding and fnendship. My son, Paul Fallon, and my son-in-law, Wade Wiant, rescued me from certain computer death with their technical expertise. Both exceeded the bounds of sonhood. VITA March 25, 1939.........................................................Bom - Columbus, Ohio 1987 .......................................................................... B.A., Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio 1989.......................................................................... M.A., The Ohio State University 1992-Present............................................................. Adjunct faculty at Otterbein College and Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field; History Women’s History, Susan Hartmann; Early U.S. History, Recent U.S.History VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract.............................................................................................ii Dedication......................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments .............................................................................v Vita....................................................................................................vi Chapters: 1. Introduction...........................................................I 2. Myths and Antecedents.......................................20 3. The Early Years....................................................57 4. Beginnings............................................................101 5. The Campaign for the Dyer Bill...........................137 6. An Expanded Front..............................................187 7. Renewing the Campaign.......................................250 8. Dimming Hopes....................................................309 Conclusion.................................................................365 Bibliography.............................................................. 370 Vll CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “All our remonstrances, supplications and petitions for the abatement of mob violence seem to have been unavailing and no prayer of the millions of an outraged race has yet been answered . When the National Association of Colored Women issued that statement as part of a resolution against lynching in 1918, they were protesting against mob violence directed at their race. ^ Between 1892 and 1940, over three thousand people in the United States were victims of lynch mobs; of that number, more than twenty-six hundred were African American. By the end of the century the character of lynching had changed from a form of stopgap punishment used to implement social order on the frontier to a phenomenon clustered almost exclusively in southern states. The shift in concentration to the South was bound to the mounting significance that race played in lynching as the southern victims were most commonly Afncan American. - The overwhelming majority of victims were male. The proportionately few female victims were usually lynched for murder or for their connection to a male suspect—some being lynched as a surrogate for a fugitive ^Minutes of the Eleventh Biennial Convention of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Denver, Colorado, July 8-13, 1918. Papers of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc., Microfilm Collection, Reel 1. -The Lynching Records at Tuskegee Institute. 1882-1968 Tuskegee Archives, Tuskegee Alabama (1969). 8-10. Also see Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor Ethics & Behavior in the Old South (Oxford, New York, Toronto, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982), 436. 1 male relative who was the actual target of the lynchers’ manhunt, while others were lynched along with