The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, part 7

WE HEAR A LOT today about people “playing the race card” — using race unjustly in a dispute, or as a moral bludgeon to obscure the facts. In 1913 Atlanta, the Leo Frank defense team played the race card — and in a very big way. Interestingly, the pro-Frank forces used race in a way that most people would find grossly unacceptable today: crudely attacking prosecution witness James Conley, a black man, in open court and on the record as a “dirty,” “lying,” “thieving” “nigger” — and characterizing the sex killing of Mary Phagan as a “Negro crime” of which “white man” Leo Frank, president of the Atlanta B’nai B’rith, would be — they insinuated — “incapable.” (ILLUSTRATION: Leo Frank’s lead attorney, Luther Z. Rosser, who, along with Reuben Arnold and other members of the Frank defense team, played the 1913 version of the “race card” with vigor, attacking James Conley in particular and, in his words, “niggers” in general.)

Original Here:
https://theamericanmercury.org/2018/06/the-leo-frank-case-the-lynching-of-a-guilty-man-part-7/