Lynching of Jesse Washington - Analysis and Legacy

Analysis and Legacy

In 2011, Berg concluded that Washington probably murdered Fryer, but doubted that he raped her. The same year, Julie Armstrong of the University of South Florida argued that Washington was probably innocent of both charges. Bernstein notes that Washington's motives have never been established. She also states that his confession could have been coerced, and that the murder weapon—perhaps the strongest evidence against him—could have been planted by authorities.

Bernstein states that Washington's lynching was a unique event because it occurred in a city with a reputation for progressiveness, but was attended by thousands of people who were excited by the brutal torture. Similar acts of mob violence typically occurred in smaller towns with fewer spectators. William Carrigan of Rowan University argues that the culture of central Texas had glorified retributive mob violence for decades before Washington's lynching, maintaining that this culture of violence explains how such a brutal attack could be publicly celebrated. Hale posits that Washington's death signaled a transition in the practice of lynching, demonstrating its acceptance in modernized, 20th-century cities. She notes that Washington's lynching illustrates how technological innovations, such as telephones and inexpensive photographs, could empower lynch mobs but also increase society's condemnation of their actions.

In their 2004 study of lynching, Peter Ehrenhaus and A. Susan Owen compare the lynching to a blood sacrifice, arguing Waco residents felt a sense of collective righteousness after Washington's death, as they saw him as the presence of evil in the community. Bernstein compares the public brutality of the lynch mob to the medieval English practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering criminals.

Amy Louise Wood of Illinois State University writes that the event was "a defining moment in the history of lynching", arguing that with Washington's death, "lynching began to sow the seeds of its own collapse". Although the spectacle of violent mob attacks had previously benefited white supremacists, Wood contends that after Washington's death was publicized, the anti-lynching movement included images of racially motivated brutality in their campaigns. Carrigan notes that Washington's death may have received more public attention than any other lynching in the United States, and sees the event as a "turning point in the history of mob violence in Central Texas". Although the outcry it provoked did not end the practice, it helped bring an end to public support of such attacks by city leaders. Carrigan states that the lynching was "the most infamous day in the history of central Texas" until the Waco siege of 1993.

After the practice of lynching was suppressed in central Texas, it received little attention from local historians. However, Waco developed a reputation for racism—propagated in part by American history textbooks—to the vexation of the city's white residents. In the years following the lynching, African Americans often held Waco in disdain, and some viewed the 1953 Waco tornado outbreak as divine retribution. White leaders of Waco took a non-violent approach in response to demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement, possibly owing to a desire to avoid stigmatizing the city again.

Blues musician Sammy Price recorded a version of "Hesitation Blues" that referenced Washington's lynching. Price lived in Waco as a child, possibly at the time of Washington's death. Waco-based novelist Madison Cooper featured a lynching, thought to be based on Washington's death, as a key event in his 1952 novel Sironia, Texas.

In the 1990s, Lawrence Johnson, a member of Waco's city council, viewed pictures of the Washington lynching at the National Civil Rights Museum, and began to lobby for a monument to the lynching. In 2002, Lester Gibson, another member of the city council, proposed that a plaque be installed at the courthouse where Washington was lynched. He further stated that the plaque should carry an apology from the city. The ideas were discussed, but proved unfruitful. In the 2000s, the idea of a memorial was revived by a McLennan County commissioner and the Waco Chamber of Commerce; the Waco Herald Tribune has editorialized in support of a historical marker on the site of the lynching. Some descendants of Fryer objected to the proposed memorial.