Lynching of Jesse Washington - NAACP Investigation and Campaign

NAACP Investigation and Campaign

The NAACP hired Elisabeth Freeman, a women's suffrage activist from New York City, to investigate the lynching. She had traveled to Texas in late 1915 or early 1916 to help organize the suffrage movement there. After attending a suffrage convention in Dallas in early May, she began her assignment in Waco, posing as a journalist and attempting to interview people about the lynching. She found that almost all residents were reluctant to discuss the event. She spoke with town officials and obtained pictures of the lynching from Gildersleeve, who was initially reluctant to provide them. Although she feared for her safety, she enjoyed the challenge of the investigation. When speaking with city leaders, Freeman convinced them that she planned to defend Waco against criticism when she returned to the north. Some journalists soon grew suspicious of her presence and warned residents not to talk to outsiders. Local African Americans, however, gave her a warm reception.

Fleming and the judge who presided over the trial each spoke with her; both argued that they did not deserve blame for the lynching. A schoolteacher who had known Washington told Freeman that Washington was illiterate, and that all attempts to teach him to read had been futile. Freeman concluded that white residents were generally supportive of Washington's lynching, although many disliked that his body was mutilated. She determined that the mob was led by a bricklayer, a saloonkeeper, and several employees of an ice company. The NAACP did not publicly identify them. Freeman concluded that Washington killed Fryer, and that he was motivated by her domineering attitude towards him.

W. E. B. Du Bois was incensed by news of the attack, saying "any talk of the triumph of Christianity, or the spread of human culture, is idle twaddle as long as the Waco lynching is possible in the United States". After receiving Freeman's report, he placed an image of Washington's body on the cover of an issue of The Crisis, the NAACP's newsletter, which discussed the event. The issue was titled "The Waco Horror" and was published as an eight-page supplement to the July edition. Du Bois popularized "Waco Horror" as a name for Washington's lynching; the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times had previously used the word "horror" to describe the event. In 1916, The Crisis had a circulation of about 30,000, three times the size of the NAACP's membership. Although the paper had campaigned against lynching in the past, this issue was the first that contained images of an attack. The NAACP's board was initially hesitant to publish such graphic content, but Du Bois insisted on doing so, arguing that uncensored coverage would push white Americans to support change. In addition to images, the issue included accounts of the lynching that Freeman obtained from Waco residents. Du Bois wrote The Crisis' article on the lynching; he edited and organized Freeman's report for publication, although she was not named in the issue. The article concluded with a call to support the anti-lynching movement. The NAACP distributed the report to hundreds of newspapers and politicians, a campaign that led to wide condemnation of the lynching. Many white observers were disturbed by the southerners who celebrated the lynching. The Crisis included more images of lynchings in subsequent issues. Washington's death received continued discussion in The Crisis. Oswald Garrison Villard wrote in a later edition of the paper that "the crime at Waco is a challenge to our American civilization".

Other black newspapers also carried significant coverage of the lynching, as did liberal papers such as The New Republic and The Nation. Freeman traveled around the U.S. to speak to audiences about her investigation, maintaining that a shift in public opinion could accomplish more than legislative actions. Although there were other lynchings as brutal as Washington's, the availability of images and the setting of his death made it a cause célèbre. Leaders of the NAACP hoped to launch a legal battle against those responsible for Washington's death, but abandoned the plan owing to the projected cost.

The NAACP had struggled financially around that time. Their anti-lynching campaign saw some success in raising funds, but it was scaled back as the U.S. entered World War I. NAACP president Joel Elias Spingarn later stated that the group's campaign placed "lynching into the public mind as something like a national problem". In her 2006 study of lynching, Bernstein describes this anti-lynching campaign as the "barest beginnings of a battle that would last many years".

The number of lynchings in the U.S. increased in the late 1910s. Additional lynchings occurred in Waco in the 1920s, partially owing to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. By the late 1920s, however, Waco authorities had begun to protect blacks from lynching, as in the case of Roy Mitchell. Authorities feared that negative publicity generated by lynchings—such as the NAACP's campaign following Washington's death—would hinder their efforts to attract investors. The NAACP fought to portray lynching as a savage, barbaric practice, an idea which eventually gained traction in the public mind. Bernstein credits the group's efforts with helping to end "the worst public atrocities of the racist system" in the Waco region.