Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating
new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help
the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm
to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.
Jesse
WASHINGTON
Classification:
Homicide
Characteristics: Juvenile (17)
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
May 8,
1916
Date of arrest:
Same day
Date of birth: 1899
Victim profile: Lucy
Frier, 53
Method of murder: Bludgeoned to death
Location: Waco, Texas, USA
Status: Lynched (mutilation and burning) by
a White American mob, an incident known as the Waco Horror,
on May 15, 1916
Jesse Washington
was an African American farmhand from Waco, Texas. On May 15, 1916,
after being convicted of the murder of a local woman, he was lynched by
a White American mob, an incident known as the Waco Horror.
The mutilation and burning of 17-year-old
Washington received perhaps the greatest notoriety of the 492 lynchings
that occurred in Texas between 1882 and 1930.
Arrest and trial
Washington was arrested on May 8, 1916, charged with
having bludgeoned to death Lucy Fryer (53), the wife of a white farmer
in Robinson, Texas, a small community seven miles south of Waco. After
confessing to both rape and murder, Washington was transferred to the
Dallas County Jail by McLennan County sheriff Samuel S. Fleming.
Washington's trial began in Waco on May 15 in the
Fifty-fourth District Court, with Judge Richard I. Munroe presiding over
a full courtroom. After hearing the evidence, a jury of 12 white men
deliberated for only four minutes before returning a guilty verdict and
assessing the death penalty.
Before law officers could remove Washington from the
court, a group of white spectators surged forward and seized the
convicted youth. They hurried him down the stairs at the rear of the
courthouse, where a crowd of about 400 persons waited in the alley. A
chain was thrown around Washington's neck before he was dragged toward
the City Hall, where another group of vigilantes had gathered to build a
bonfire.
Lynch mob
A postcard showing the burned body of Jesse
Washington, Waco, Texas, 1916. This image is from a postcard, which said
on the back, "This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is to
the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe."
Upon reaching the city hall grounds, the leaders of
the mob threw Washington onto a pile of dry goods boxes under a tree and
poured coal oil over his body. The chain around Washington's neck was
thrown over a limb of the tree, and several men lowered his body onto
the pile of combustibles and ignited a fire. An observer wrote:
"Washington was beaten with shovels and bricks (...)
was castrated, and his ears were cut off. A tree supported the iron
chain that lifted him above the fire (...) Wailing, the boy attempted to
climb up the skillet hot chain. For this, the men cut off his fingers."
Two hours later, some men placed the burned corpse in
a cloth bag and pulled the bundle behind an automobile to Robinson,
where they hung the sack from a pole in front of a blacksmith's shop for
public viewing. Later that afternoon, constable Les Stegall retrieved
the remains and turned them over to a Waco undertaker for burial.
Though lynching violated Texas law, no members of the
mob were prosecuted. However, the foreman of Washington's jury
criticized local law officers for failing to prevent the lynching, and a
special committee of Baylor University faculty passed resolutions
denouncing mobs.
A. T. Smith, an African American journalist, editor
of the Paul Quinn Weekly, was arrested and convicted of criminal libel
after he printed allegations that Lucy Fryer's husband had committed the
murder.
Press coverage
While the The Nation, The New Republic and The New
York Times condemned the lynching, only a few Texan newspapers denounced
the Waco mob. The Houston Post, Houston Express, Austin American and San
Antonio Express printed critical editorials, but the Dallas newspapers
made few comments.
The Waco Morning News expressed regret for the
incident, but resented what it called the "wholesale denunciation of the
South and the people of Waco" by the national press.
The most important demonstration of outrage emanated
from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
which launched a full-scale investigation of the affair and employed the
incident as a cause célèbre in the organization's crusade for a federal
antilynching bill. A photographer's pictures of the lynching
strengthened the argument.
References
Charles F. Kellogg, NAACP: A History (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1967).
Rogers M. Smith, The Waco Lynching of 1916 (M.A.
thesis, Baylor University, 1971).
James M. SoRelle, "The `Waco Horror': The
Lynching of Jesse Washington," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 86
(April 1983).
Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against
Lynching (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980).
Wikipedia
Waco Recalls a 90-Year-Old 'Horror'
by Wade Goodwyn - NPR.org
May 13, 2006
On Monday, a small interracial
organization will meet on the steps of the Waco Texas
courthouse to read a resolution condemning and
apologizing for the lynching of 17-year-old Jesse
Washington.
Washington’s lynching 90 years ago
was so astonishingly brutal that the incident became
known nationally as the "Waco Horror."
The Waco Interracial Coalition is
forcing Waco to confront some of its painful history and
there are many in this city of 200,000 who have no
interest in apologizing for something that happened 90
years ago.
"It's a very ugly part of history,"
says Ray Meadows, a Waco county commissioner. "I regret
that it happened, but as far as me coming out to
apologize…I didn't have anything to do with it."
A Murder, Followed by a
Lynching
Around sundown of May 8, 1916, Lucy
Fryer, the wife of a well regarded cotton farmer, was
found bludgeoned to death in the doorway of her seed
house. Jesse Washington, who was illiterate and branded
"feeble-minded", confessed to the murder.
Soon after a jury found him guilty, a
crowd of 2,000 men seized Washington, chained him, beat
him and dragged him to the town square, where he was
burned.
His fingers were amputated for
souvenirs and his fingernails taken for keepsakes.
Finally all that was left was a charred torso, but
Washington’s body parts were put in a bag so they could
be dragged through downtown.
A Story in Search of an End
"I had been hearing about it all of
my life," says Lester Gibson, the only African-American
county commissioner in Waco. "It's a wound that has not
healed in the mindset of the African-American community.
It's going to continue to be passed on from generation
to generation. I think that the only thing that can
basically bring McLennan County together is some
reconciliation of the matter."
Monday at 11 a.m., the precise moment
Jesse Washington was seized in the courtroom, the Waco
interracial coalition will announce their regret for
Washington’s murder. Later in the week, the county
commissioners and the city council will debate whether
they should make any official statement.
Jesse Washington lynching
Of the 492 lynchings that occurred in Texas between
1882 and 1930, the incident that perhaps received the greatest notoriety,
both statewide and nationally, was the mutilation and burning of an
illiterate seventeen-year-old black farmhand named Jesse Washington by a
white mob in Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916-an event sometimes dubbed the
"Waco Horror."
Washington was arrested on May 8, 1916, and charged
with bludgeoning to death fifty-three-year-old Lucy Fryer, the wife of a
white farmer in Robinson, a small community seven miles south of Waco.
After confessing that he had both raped and murdered Mrs. Fryer,
Washington was transferred to the Dallas County Jail by McLennan county
sheriff Samuel S. Fleming, who hoped to prevent mob action at least
until the accused could have his day in court.
Washington's trial began in Waco on May 15, in the
Fifty-fourth District Court, with Judge Richard I. Munroe presiding over
a courtroom filled to capacity. After hearing the evidence, a jury of
twelve white men deliberated for only four minutes before returning a
guilty verdict against the defendant and assessing the death penalty.
Before law officers could remove Washington from the
courtroom, a group of white spectators surged forward and seized the
convicted youth. They hurried him down the stairs at the rear of the
courthouse, where a crowd of about 400 persons waited in the alley. A
chain was thrown around Washington's neck, and he was dragged toward the
City Hall, where another group of vigilantes had gathered to build a
bonfire.
Upon reaching the city hall grounds, the leaders of
the mob threw their victim onto a pile of dry-goods boxes under a tree
and poured coal oil over his body. The chain around Washington's neck
was thrown over a limb of the tree, and several men joined to jerk him
into the air before lowering his body onto the pile of combustibles and
igniting a fire.
Two hours later several men placed the burned corpse
in a cloth bag and pulled the bundle behind an automobile to Robinson,
where they hung the sack from a pole in front of a blacksmith's shop for
public viewing. Later that afternoon constable Les Stegall retrieved the
remains and turned them over to a Waco undertaker for burial.
Though lynching violated Texas law, no members of the
Waco mob were prosecuted. However, the foreman of the jury that
convicted Washington criticized local law officers for failing to
prevent the lynching, and a special committee of Baylor University
faculty passed resolutions denouncing the mob.
A black journalist, A. T. Smith, editor of the
Paul Quinn Weekly, was arrested and convicted of criminal libel
after he printed allegations that Lucy Fryer's husband had committed the
murder. Other blacks in the Waco area condemned the Fryer killing and
remained conciliatory toward the white population.
Although the Nation, the New Republic,
and the New York Times severely condemned the lynching, only a
few Texas newspapers denounced the Waco mob. The Houston Post,
Houston Express, Austin American, and San Antonio
Express printed critical editorials, but the Dallas newspapers made
few comments. The Waco Morning News expressed regret for the
incident but resented the "wholesale denunciation of the South and of
the people of Waco" by the national press.
The most important demonstration of outrage emanated
from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
which launched a full-scale investigation of the affair and employed the
incident as a cause célèbre in the organization's crusade for a
federal antilynching bill. A photographer's pictures of the lynching
strengthened the argument.
Although the American entrance into World War I
delayed the NAACP campaign until 1919, the "Waco Horror" remained a
vivid indication that though the frequency of lynchings had begun to
decline in the United States after 1900, those incidents that still
occurred often were characterized by extreme barbarity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Charles F. Kellogg, NAACP: A History
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967). Rogers M. Smith, The Waco
Lynching of 1916 (M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1971). James M.
SoRelle, "The `Waco Horror': The Lynching of Jesse Washington,"
Southwestern Historical Quarterly 86 (April 1983). Robert L.
Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1980).
