1916: Jesse Washington lynched after conviction
May 15th, 2008 dogboy
Lynching is such a vile word. Likely taken from the name of Captain William Lynch of Virginia (circa 1780), the term for administering justice while dispensing with a trial had, by 1916, long since taken on its more common meaning of a white-on-black public killing.
But Jesse Washington’s case defies this simple definition, straddling the line between state execution and an unrestrained populace. Washington’s brutal lynching at the hands of a white mob in Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, clearly fits the definition, and the particularly grisly details of his demise conjure all-too-familiar images of violent racism in the pre-Civil Rights South; but in another more disturbing way, Washington was effectively executed, his punishment carried out not by the state of Texas, but by the people themselves.
Washington was born in 1899, a black farmhand who may or may not have been mentally retarded.* While his life is not well-documented, his death most certainly is. Washington was arrested on May 8 of that year for the rape and murder of Lucy Fryer, the 53-year old wife of a well-to-do cotton farmer. Fryer was found bludgeoned to death. Washington was spared for a week by the Waco sheriff, who successfully took him into custody before a pre-trial mob got their hands on him; Washington was then sent to Dallas for holding to prevent a local incident. To appease the mob, he was transferred back to Waco and tried for the crime just one week later.
It’s unclear whether Washington was guilty — evidence is scant and the trial lasted just one hour, but Washington appears to have had ample opportunity to perpetrate the act and is purported to have confessed — but his guilt or innocence in the matter was not on the mob’s mind. On May 15, the well-attended trial ended, and in four minutes, the jury reached its guilty verdict. Before the 17-year old could be sentenced, and with little or no resistance offered by any of the various legal entities in the courthouse, several hundred of the onlookers (some brandishing weapons) rushed Washington and carried him out the doors. Outside, a larger crowd waited to beat and castrate him. A chain was thrown around Washington’s neck, and he was dragged to the town square, where he met an immense crowd as well as the pile of dry goods boxes that was to be his end.
By some estimates, up to 15,000 (mostly white, though not exclusively white) people watched the horrible events unfold; without question, Waco’s mayor as well as several other public officials watched from their second-story perch at town hall on one side of the square. Washington was tossed onto the boxes and coal oil was poured over him. The other end of the chain was thrown over what has become known as the Hanging Tree, and the fuel below Washington’s feet was set ablaze. Immersed in the flames, he attempted to climb the blisteringly hot chain multiple times, each time to be lowered back into the cauldron. It’s unclear how long Washington was alive, but the event lasted more than an hour, after which his fingers and teeth were claimed as souvenirs, his body parts were separated from the torso, and the remains of Washington were dumped in a bag so they might be dragged once more through the Waco streets.
Also watching from the mayor’s position was a cameraman who wanted to sell photographs of Washington’s charred corpse as postcards. Fred Gildersleeve snapped a series of images which would briefly make Waco the most shamefully famous city in the nation. Gildersleeve’s work paints a portrait of a town possessed by spite and uncontrolled rage: thousands of white spectators standing about the burning body of Washington from above, then hundreds of blacks gathered around his burned and brutalized remains from ground level. Others took pictures as well,
some more disturbing than others.
A complete and startlingly brutal account of this murder is given by Patricia Bernstein in her 2005 book The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP, which also tracks the increased viability of the NAACP in the wake of the slaying. What makes this case noteworthy for this column, though, is that Washington was found guilty prior to his lynching, and he would doubtless have received a state-supported death sentence. At the time, Texas law would have allowed for a public hanging; presumably, the spectacle surrounding Washington’s execution would have been just as significant (though not nearly as gruesome). Instead, vigilante justice was administered on the young farmhand, and his case because a linchpin for the Civil Rights movement. As with other lynchings of the time, no persons were charged in the incident, though it was obvious that there was significant planning involved and, from some of the images, that some form of self-appointed executioner actively participated in the deed.
Unlike a state-sponsored execution, though, Washington’s death raised the ire of the jury foreman, who harshly criticized the court for not protecting him. And because he was lynched, his cause was also taken up by several Northern papers, pushed into the national spotlight by NAACP secretary Royal Freeman Nash and Elisabeth Freeman.** Over 90 years later, the town of Waco is still dealing with the Waco Horror. The lynching has reared its head multiple times as many residents have pushed for a plaque to be erected on the site of the lynching, as one was for a distressingly large number of prior lynchings in Waco. Some in the town continue to resist, asserting that Washington’s guilt absolved the mob of responsibility for its act.
Washington’s case raises two of the critical issues in the modern death penalty debate: culpability of the executioner (and witnesses), and cruelty of punishment. Nobody in the mob was prosecuted for the crime, and in the Waco of that day, it would have been unusual if someone had; today, we take little interest in the state executioner but would vociferously condemn such mob action. On a similar note, Washington’s death was barbaric and brutal, and few would argue that such an execution should be undertaken through legal channels, but recent Supreme Court cases have found it difficult to identify the meaning of “cruel and unusual punishment”. The debate continues in the United States, but these are two arguments, posed by Cesare Beccaria, that caused Leopold II to outlaw capital punishment in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1789, and cases like Washington’s suggest they should continue at the very least to give us pause today.
* Some accounts state simply that he was illiterate, and if this is the litmus test for mental retardation in the early 1900s, around 6 percent of the population fell into that category.
** Freeman worked tirelessly to drag information from Waco’s inhabitants, her actions likely sparking papers like the local Waco Times-Herald to quickly shut the door on the case; that paper officially apologized 90 years later for its and other newspapers’ roles in venerating the lynch mob.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1917: Thirteen black soldiers of the 24th U.S. Infantry Regiment
- 1936: Rainey Bethea, America’s last public hanging
- 1909: Will James, “the Froggie”, lynched in Cairo
Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Borderline "Executions", Burned, Capital Punishment, Crime, Death Penalty, Disfavored Minorities, Dismembered, Gruesome Methods, Hanged, History, Lynching, Mature Content, Murder, Notable Participants, Public Executions, Racial and Ethnic Minorities, Texas, Torture, USA
Tags: 1916, jesse washington, may 15, naacp, waco
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29 Comments Add your own
1. Lacresha Lowery | October 5th, 2008 at 3:26 am
This makes me angry and sick to my stomach. How can a human beings be so hatefull and ignorant?
2. edgar austin | October 6th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
this sickning to see i ask that each and every case of a unjustified lyching in waco be investigated there is a story of lynching on the same day that the two deadly tornados almost destroyed waco
3. Conor Worley | October 7th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Those were some very sick and depraved people.
4. ashley j | October 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
wow… i was always so interested in history and particularly lynching. It is vile, disgusting and a sad way to die, but i find that i am very interested in the whole subject. THese people were obviously sick and very very spiteful. To hate another human being like this! Maybe he did do it and maybe he didnt, but no one deserved to be set ablaze and dragged through the city streets as more than 10,000 awed onlookers watch on. As a young African American woman, this makes me think of why some African Americans just cannot forgive whites.. The horrendous tales of Lynching should be taught more in class. We never got this far into it in high school
5. Dr.R. Clavan | October 15th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
They should do the same with today’s muslims.
6. Rae | October 28th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Dr. R. Claven: “They should do the same with today’s muslims.”
That is just as disgusting as what these people did to the blacks. It’s people like you who make me sick to my stomach. We have fought so hard for racial equality, and now you’re against spiritual/religious equality. Grow up. It’s things like this that make me ashamed to be human.
7. George | October 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Rae…if you are so ashamed to be human…. do something about it.
Don’t be so dramatic. It was a sign of the times. What Ashley J said about how can people so this to another human being…its easy..they didn’t consider him to be a “Human being”. That is how come humans can and do continue to treat each other like this. Another thing..its over…if it disgusts you so much, do something about the atrocities going on now…like women in the middle east being half buried in the ground and stoned to death. Now thats sick!!!!!
8. JNR | October 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
All lynchings are First Degree Murders, and nothing less. There is no justification for murder (lynching) and it should condemed without exception or qualification.
9. abama 08 | October 31st, 2008 at 1:00 am
to George and Dr. R Clavan I just want to say that both of ya’ll can go straight to hell and burn just like thoses innocent people of our past have. Race and religion are things that we are born into, and cannot control, im sure both of ya’ll are white and wouldn’t understand that concept though. Your ignorance makes people all over the world look bad, you should be ashamed, how about we burn you or your old ass mother?
10. ExecutedToday.com »&hellip | October 31st, 2008 at 11:57 am
[...] May 15, 1916: Jesse Washington lynched after conviction [...]
11. singaporean | January 31st, 2009 at 12:54 am
This incident seriously disgusts me and made abandon all dreams of going to America.How can humans be so ignorant and incorrigible?
12. Marc | February 18th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Singaporean…….This thing happened a long time ago. The USA has since matured. Incidents like that simply don’t happen here anymore.
13. ravensdottir | February 19th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Marc: Since when has the US matured? Aside from a black president, we also have schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama!” days after the general election. They weren’t stopped by the adults- after all, they were just children - in a very Republican state. We also have many individuals very fearful now of a non-white president (in CT, a town councilman was suspended without pay for comparing Obama to the Antichrist). Granted, the level of violence has dropped, but that is only from the enforcement of the laws. I happen to be white, could care less what color or race anyone is, so long as we can get along as individuals & I’m not forced to follow a religion or cultural code not my own. Much of the violence right now is from immigrants refusing to assimilate & insisting that they keep their cultural norms, such as female genital mutilation, honor killings, & forcing women to wear “coverings” for their modesty.
14. ravensdottir | February 19th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Marc: As an addendum: I have been in a race riot (right after MLK was assassinated) in Richmond- had my tailbone broken by a bunch of angry black boys; I was 9 at the time. I have also been refused service in a mostly non-white restaurant- because of my color. And I have had my education limited- deliberately, by a Mexican-American school administrator who wanted to make white kids feel repressed & marginalized (his claim to his supervisor, in front of me). On other other hand, Singapore, China is no better. There they have infanticide, practice abortions after the 7th month, & harvest organs out of political prisoners. They also tend to execute corrupt business owners for embarrassing China, but do nothing to correct the system that allows tainted food & drugs to be produced.
15. Smelk | March 2nd, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Racism still exist! We are not born racist; it is taught. Remember it!
Preachers, Doctors, Teachers and many other so called “respectful” people participated in this William Lynch mob.
What do you think they are capable of doing today?
Learn your history! History is taught so that we don’t repeat our mistakes.
16. Jim | April 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Dear God how can human beings be so brutal. That poor boy did not deserve that hideous fate. I cannot fathom this happened in America. How can Waco not face its crime and atone for its collective sins. We tied and punished the leaders of Nazi Germany for crimes such as this and in America these murderers celebrated their evil doing. Shame on all of us for not demanding that Waco and Texas apologize for its criminal behaviours over the years.
17. Onas | May 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 am
If he was found guilty of rape and murder, then he got what he deserved.
18. ExecutedToday.com »&hellip | May 4th, 2009 at 10:42 am
[...] but they also serve to illustrate the inequity of the death penalty in the south at the time. Lynchings were becoming less common, but the implied bargain of swift justice pacified the vigilante cry for [...]
19. B reanna | May 7th, 2009 at 10:49 am
son of a bitches
20. emily crossman | May 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am
you are some sick individuals you need to burn in hell for this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why would you be smiling about something like this….ewwwww!!!
21. ALONE | May 15th, 2009 at 10:38 am
everyone has there opinoin on how they feel its not ike anything is going to change. Yes we have a black president but that dosen’t mean that were going too have world peace soon. it jst means yes America is trying to make up for the past my fellow blacks had to endure. that dosen’t mean that we have to hate all whites and danm them to hell?? we have all said one thing or another i cant stand whites or blacks or even mexicans. cause im guilty of it mysellf but does that me me rasist no. so wiyth everyone going back and forth about how we feel an how bad America is just stop and think at least were not a third war counrty and getting shot and people killed at least we can walk out thr front door and feel safe. so lets stop downing on our America and have some pride and at least say yess we have had some problems in the past but Damn It at least were tring to move past an move on and try yo make u a better country. ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for a country. we need to be as one people!
22. Mark | June 26th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Most of the people that did it were democrats. To this day, the democrats expect the black man to serve the democrats on the party plantation and faithfully vote democrat every time without ever really getting anything back (remember, the civil rights bills would not have been passed if it hadn’t been for lopsided republican support).
23. Benjamin | August 5th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
This makes me sick. I feel like throwing up!
Damn Rednecks. They should go die.
24. Benjamin2 | August 5th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Just goes to show how dumb a yokel can get
Ben’s gay
25. Marcus Xavier | August 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Evry wite person shud be strug up like this an kiled
26. CurseOfCurves | September 12th, 2009 at 6:02 am
I feel so bad for this guy..I mean for all we know the husband could’ve done it! I really doubt he was convicted on any type of evidence that would be allowed in our courts today.
27. Lil Nig | September 14th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Its cruel to inflict a painful execution, but if he was guilty he deserved execution. Many white people were lynched for their crimes in the past. Negroes lynch each other every day in Americas cities - and still expect special treatment
28. ExecutedToday.com »&hellip | October 31st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
[...] 9. May 15, 1916: Jesse Washington lynched after conviction [...]
29. youthadvocate | November 16th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I work with youth at juvenile hall, i will be conducting a workshop on the history of youth and the justice system in america…this picture will be a part of the discussion. school’s don’t teach this part of history for a reason and it needs to be shared.
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