Elizabeth Lawson writes on the character of the 37 reported lynchings in 1932 as the social crisis in the Great Depression gathered pace. But then looks at the cover-ups, press white-washing, ‘night-rider’ and individual terror, legal frame-ups and executions, police murder, and imagines the real figure to be far higher.

‘Lynchers Take Huge Toll in 1932’ by Elizabeth Lawson from the Daily Worker. Vol. 9 No. 304. December 21, 1932.

Facts Show Negroes, Whites Fight Lynch Terror

Stories from Boss Press Reveal 37 Lynchings in Year

THE lynchers again took a huge toll in 1932. There were definite reports of 37 cases in which Negroes (and in two instances whites) were lynched by more or less organized groups.

A careful study of the records of Iynch-law for the year shows a number of facts of the utmost interest to the revolutionary workers and to the Negro masses. The Negro masses have fought, harder against lynchings; the white workers, In increasing numbers, under the leadership of the Communist Party and sympathetic organizations, have entered the fight against lynching and for Negro rights.

CHARACTER OF LYNCHINGS DIFFER.

The character of the lynchings, also, shows a marked change. The lynch-crowds were smaller in numbers. and of a more organized character than previously. In many cases they were led by public officials; there is much evidence that the poor whites had little or nothing to do with their organization in the majority of cases. There were, also, obvious attempts to cover up many lynchings, and the whitewashing of lynchings that could not be entirely kept from the world, became more than ever a fine art of the local and national governments.

At the same time, there was a noticeable attempt on the part of the lynchers to use the court-room for “respectable” legal lynchings; the number of such legal lynchings was large this last year. At the same time, police terrorism increased: and large numbers of Negroes were shot down by police and other officials.

THE word “Scottsboro” is written large in the reason for these changes. The militancy of the Negro and white workers displayed in the Scottsboro struggle had the effect of preventing many a lynching.

The Scottsboro case has educated large masses of white toilers who are realizing for the first time that the struggle of the Negro masses is their struggle, is part of the larger struggle of the working class. Hence, again, the smaller numbers participating in the lynch-crowds; the obvious efforts of the lynchers to hide and whitewash lynchings before a community whose support they feel they are rapidly losing.

A study of the records of lynch law for the year, as compiled by the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, reveals the following facts:

THIRTY-SEVEN LYNCHINGS REPORTED.

There were definite reports of 37 cases in which Negroes (and in two instances whites) were lynched by more or less organized groups. Included here is the lynching of a native in Hawaii and the murder of seven Negro firemen in the South.

But this total is far too low. To say that only 37 lynchings took place would be to cover up some of the most important facts in the lynch-record of the year 1932. The fact is that 37 lynchings came to light Many lynchings were not reported in the press; there were definite attempts to cover up lynchings. Also, this total omits the enormous number of police murders of Negroes.

The Negro masses fought with heightened militancy against lynching in 1932. Instance after instance is recorded, of self-defense against the lynchers.

Great masses of white workers have entered the struggle against lynching. Militant working class organizations have fought with vigor against lynchings and lynch frame-ups. Outstanding Is the work of the Communist Party, the International Labor Defense and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, in the case of the nine innocent Scottsboro boys.

Under the leadership of these organizations, furious mass protests have arisen in the case of Euel Lee; in the Logan Circle frame up in Washington, D.C.; in the near lynching at Lebanon, Tenn., and in many other cases. The lynching of Negroes this past year, especially, has been followed by a flood of protest from the workers, Negro and white. The lynching of an unknown Negro toller in the Black Belt is no longer the concern only of the small community in which It occurs: it has become a near concern of the working class from coast to coast.

The Scottsboro case, and especially the tour of Mrs. Ada Wright across the face of Europe, have taught millions of European workers the meaning of the term “lynch-law”. And these millions of workers have also entered into the struggle against the lynching of Negro fosters in the South

FOR all these reasons. It is unquestionable that many lynchings were prevented through fear of the wrath of the Negro and white workers.

In at least two Instances, organized groups rescued Negroes about to be lynched and set them free. The first instance was the case of Alex Dorsey, Negro miner and organizer for the National Miners Union, who was torn by rank and file miners, Negro and white, from the hands of two carloads of lynchers at Bridgeport, Ohio, in June. Lawrence Bulford, a poor Negro farmer, got into an argument with a white man while his farm was being sold at auction. When a lynch crowd gathered, two poor white farmers appeared with levelled shot-guns and drove the lynchers off.

ORGANIZED CHARACTER OF LYNCH-CROWDS.

The character of lynchings, also, has shown a marked change during the past year. In a large number of cases. It was evident that the lynch crowds had been carefully organized by business men and public officials, such as sheriffs.

In many cases the lynching was committed by a sheriff’s posse. The lynchers could no longer rely on masses of white workers, their minds inflamed with the boss poison of race hatred; for these white workers are learning, under the leadership of militant working- class organizations, that their interests lie in joining hands with these Negro toilers whom they had once been taught to hate.

The character of such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is nowhere shown more clearly than in their attempt to deny the character of “lynchings”, to lynch-crowds organized by sheriffs and other public officials. The N.A.A.C.P. is interested only in preserving the present system; it is interested in having lynchings committed according to legal form. It is anxious to soft-pedal the crimes of the white ruling class against the Negro people; for when these crimes are laid bare, the Negro masses—and the white workers— learn the need of a determined struggle against the very system and government that is responsible for lynching and discrimination. Therefore, whenever the leader of a lynch-crowd can show a sheriff’s badge, the N.A.A.C.P. denies that the lynching was—a lynching!

The militant working class denies that a lynch-crowd led by a sheriff, which trails down a Negro, sets fire to his house, and shoots him down, is any the less a lynch-crowd because its leader can show a star on his coat.

A high degree of organization of the lynch-crowd was apparent in the wiping out of a Negro family in Senatobia, Miss.; in the murder of Henry Russell in Georgia; in the killing of Ed Dunlap in Mississippi. In connection with the murder of Negro railwaymen, an organized murder ring was discovered, which paid whites to murder Negro railway workers, at the rate of from $25 to $125 per lynching.

ATTEMPT TO COVER UP LYNCHINGS.

There was, this past year, a definite attempt to cover up many of the lynchings. In many cases the lynchers did their work quietly and discovery was made only much later. From this fact, two Important conclusions must be drawn;

1. That, without question, an enormous number of lynchings have occurred which have not come to light, but knowledge of which has been carefully suppressed. This is probably more true of 1932 than of previous years, and is due to the fear of the lynchers in the face of the increased militancy of Negro and white.

2. That the lynchers felt that they did not have the support of the mass of whites in the community to the same extent as previously, and therefore had need of hiding their actions, The- entrance of masses of white workers into the anti-lynching struggle this last year, under the leadership of the Communist Party and other militant organizations; the growing unity of Negro and white workers in many struggles, gave the lynchers good reason for their fear.

WHITEWASHING LYNCHINGS.

Official bodies, from coroners’ juries to the national government, have carefully whitewashed lynchings that could not be altogether kept from the world. Very few arrests were- made. With the exception of a light sentence in one case in the Ironton lynching, and extremely light sentences in the cases of murder of Negro railwaymen, no convictions were obtained.

We cite here a few instances of the fine art of whitewashing as practiced in 1932:

The lynchers of Luke Murray, in Ohio, with one exception, went scot-free. The death of Shadrack Thompson by lynching was termed “suicide” by the coroner. In the investigation of the murder of Negro firemen, the problem of who organized the murder ring and paid for the killings was carefully side-stepped.

In almost every ease, coroners’ juries reported that the lynched person had been killed by “persons unknown”. Four white lynchers who murdered a Hawaiian native in Honolulu, when freed by pressure of the U.S. government after they had been found guilty.

This year saw also the official whitewash of three lynchings that took place in 1931: the whitewash of the Salisbury, Md., lynching by the county grand jury and the refusal in West Virginia to indict the men arrested in connection with the lynching of Tom Jackson and George Banks.

OFFICIALS PREFER LEGAL LYNCHINGS.

An enormous number of “rope-and-faggot” lynchings were prevented by officials who believed that a legal lynching by judge and court would be far more safe in view of the rising resistance of the Negro people. What must be noted about these near-lynchings is the following: in practically every case, the officials persuaded the lynch-crowd to give up its victim or victims on the promise that swift conviction would follow in the courts —in other words, that there would be a legal lynching. This has undoubtedly led to the repetition of ‘Scottsboros’ in many places. A follow-up of court proceedings in these cases would undoubtedly show swift death sentences or long jail sentences on no evidence. The murder of Isaac Mims and Percy Irvin in the death chair in Alabama in March for the theft of 50 cents, is surely a legal lynching.

POLICE MURDERS.

If the murder of Negroes by police, jail guards and white “citizens” he included in the list of lynchings for 1932—and these murders are, in truth, lynchings—then the number reaches well into the hundreds. The year 1932 has seen a terrific number of such cases. There is, however, no adequate record of this phase of lynching, since, in the first place, the shooting of a Negro by a white policeman is so common as to be hardly “news”, and, second, there is a definite attempt to cover up the facts of these killings. It is extremely significant that the nine cities highest in the homicide list for 1931 are all southern cities.

TERRORISM ON THE INCREASE.

Highly organized terroristic activities against Negroes was reported from almost every nook and corner of the county in 1932. We mention only a few instances:

The attempt to terrorize Negro railway workers by the murder of some of their number. The terrorization of the Negro farmers near Dresden. Tenn., by organized bands of “night riders”. The flogging of highway construction workers near Starkville, Miss. From every part of the country come reports of the revival of the Ku Klux Klau. It is obvious that the increasing militancy of the Negro masses is leading the white land-owners and bosses to try to crush their spirit by organized terror.

LYNCH FRAME-UPS.

The attempt of courts and officials to murder the nine Scottsboro boys has continued through 1932. Other outstanding instances of lynch frame-ups are: Euel Lee in Maryland; Jess Hollins ill Oklahoma; Angelo Herndon in Atlanta: six Negroes in Washington, D.C. (Logan Circle case); Willie Brown in Philadelphia.

How shall the workers fight lynching? This vital question will be dealt with in an article soon to be published.

BULLETIN: This article was written just before news arrived of the murder of six Negro share-croppers in the Alabama Black Belt by sheriffs and other agents of the white landowners. The enormous number of lynchings and police murders of Negroes in 1932 has as one of its main objects the crushing of the attempts at organization on the part of the starving share-croppers.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist

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