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Info of photo (no need to copy) Lawrence Beitler took this photograph on August 7, 1930. It showed the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two young black men from the John Robinson show circus accused of killing a white man and raping his girlfriend. A mob of 10,000 whites (number may be inaccurate) took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get these men. A third young man, James Cameron was freed (there are conflicting stories as per how) and served four years in jail for accessory to murder. Lynching photos were made into postcards to show off civic pride and white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up angering and revolting as many as they scared. Cameron eventually becomes a major activist and leader of the NAACP in Marion, Indiana.
Lesson 2a.Focal point: We will learn about efforts made by the NAACP to end lynching in the south in the 1920’s. • The United States Senate today took up a rare resolution expressing remorse. The Senate is apologizing not for something it did, but for something it failed to do. Itnever approved a law against lynching. During the first half of the 20th century, there was no shortage of anti-lynching bills introduced in Congress, but in the end there was no law. • National Public Radio, Robert Siegel 2005
Efforts to make lynching a crime • Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1922 was pushed by NAACP lawyers and passed in the House of Representatives but never came to a vote in the Senate. • The bill tried to make state and local officials legally responsible for persecuting mob (two or more people) violence or face jail time themselves. • Lynching today is considered a mob activity and persecuted by the maximum extent of the law.
