Learn about African American history with these old magazine articles. Find information on Black Civil Rights violations in the 1920s.
Figures were presented at the National Lynching Conference showing that in the last thirty years 3,224 persons have been killed by lynching, 2,834 of them in Southern states which once were slave-holding.
An article from The Outlook reported on the enormous amount of discomfort that the Ku Klux Klan was generating among Catholics in 1922 Kansas. During a New York interview, Kansas Governor Henry J. Allen (1868 – 1950) remarked about the piles of letters his office received imploring that the state take action and how he, too, had been threatened by the organization.
Kansas is engaged in trying out the Ku Klux Klan through an action in the State Supreme Court to restrain it’s secret activities.
Teddy Roosevelt’s (1858 – 1919) magazine The Outlook, was often quite critical of the Ku Klux Klan, yet in this brief notice the editors seemed surprisingly Milquetoast in their reporting of the organization’s growth and assorted activities. The article passively noted bizarre rumors that stood in contrast to the Klan’s history:
There have been some queer developments in the Ku Klux Klan. Thus in Georgia it has been alleged that Negroes have been asked to join…
Reproduced here are the two pages from the Congressional Digest of 1922 which are composed of both the outline of the proposed legislation as well as the debate of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.
The bill, which was introduced by Representative Leonidas C. Dyer (1871 – 1957)of Missouri, was intended to make lynching a felony that would have resulted in a short prison term and a $5,000.00 fine for all guilty participants. The proposed legislation passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Congressional debates concerning anti-lynching would be a topic for many years to come, however, the arguments presented against passage of this bill by the Southern Representatives make an interesting read.
An end of the year round-up of the 1916 lynchings concentrating on the state of Georgia as the lynching champion for the second year in a row (Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri were all tied for the 1914 title).
A short, uncredited article written in response to a report by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) concerning a series of lynchings in 1914. There is a minute breakdown, by state, showing where each of the murders took place.
A dreary news story relaying the violent end that came to one R.C. Williams of Ruston, Louisiana.
This article was published during the opening days of 1933 and reported on the deep spirit of optimism that was enjoyed by the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, and their executive director, Mrs. Jessi Daniel Ames (1883 – 1972). This group of Southerners were hoping that, through their efforts and those of other like-minded Southern organizations, 1933 would be a year without a single lynching:
If Mississippi can have a lynchless year, a lynchless South is a possible and reasonable goal…
The reporter dryly noted that a few days after the above remark was recorded, a lynching was committed – one of the twenty-eight that took place throughout the course of 1933.
(The article can be read here)
This article from 1921 reported on a disturbing series of lynchings that took place between the years 1917 through 1919 by U.S. Army personnel serving in France during the First World War. The journalist quotes witness after witness who appeared before a Senate Committee regarding the lynchings they had seen:
Altogether…I saw ten Negroes and two white men hanged at Is-Sur-Tille. Twenty-eight other members of my command also witnessed these hangings and if necessary, I can produce them.
It was alleged that the murders were committed under the authority of American officers who willingly acted outside the law.
If you would like to read more about African-American service during W.W. I you may click here.
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