Jesse Washington was a 17-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of lynching known as the "Waco Horror". Washington was accused of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his white employer in rural Robinson, Texas. After being found guilty and sentenced to death, he was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. Washington was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He was then lynched in front of Waco's city hall.
Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere among the people at the spectacle of the murder, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob cut off Washington's fingers and hung him over a bonfire after saturating him with coal oil. Washington was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco. Although the lynching was supported by many Waco residents, it was condemned by newspapers around the United States.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hired Elisabeth Freeman to investigate; she conducted a detailed probe in Waco, despite the reluctance of many residents to speak about the event. Freeman concluded that white residents were generally supportive of Washington's lynching. She also concluded that Washington had actually murdered Fryer, albeit the accusations that he had raped her were false. After receiving Freeman's report on the lynching, NAACP co-founder and editor W. E. B. Du Bois published an in-depth report featuring photographs of Washington's charred body in The Crisis, and the NAACP featured his death in their anti-lynching campaign.
Historians have noted that Washington's death helped alter the way lynching was viewed. The widespread negative publicity helped curb public support for the practice. In the 1990s and 2000s, some Waco residents lobbied for a monument to Washington's lynching, but this idea failed to garner wide support in the city. On the centennial of the event in May 2016, the mayor of Waco held a formal ceremony to apologize to Washington's relatives and the African American community. A historical marker has been installed to memorialize the lynching.
Background
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of lynchings were committed primarily in the Southern United States. Between 1890 and 1920, about 3,000 African Americans who were alleged perpetrators of crimes were killed by lynch mobs. They were conducted outside the legal system: suspects were taken from jail and courtrooms or killed before arrest. Supporters of lynching justified the practice as a way to assert dominance over African Americans, to whom they attributed a criminal nature. Lynching also provided a sense of white solidarity in a culture with changing demographics and power structures. Although lynching was tolerated by much of southern society, opponents of the practice emerged, including some religious leaders and the nascent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Waco, Texas, was a prosperous city with a population of more than 30,000 in 1916. After it became associated with crime in the 19th century, community leaders sought to change its reputation, sending delegations across the U.S. to promote it as an idyllic locale. By the 1910s, Waco's economy had become strong and the city had gained a pious reputation. A black middle class had emerged in the area, along with two black colleges. In the mid-1910s, blacks constituted about twenty percent of the Waco population. In her 2006 study of lynching, journalist Patricia Bernstein describes the city as then having a "thin veneer" of peace and respectability. Racial tension was present in the city: local newspapers often emphasized crimes committed by African Americans, and Sank Majors, a black man, was lynched and hanged from a bridge near downtown Waco in 1905. A small number of anti-lynching activists lived in the area, including the president of Waco's Baylor University. In 1916, several factors led to an increase in local racism, including the screening of The Birth of a Nation, a movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, and the sale of photographs of a recently lynched black man in Temple, Texas.
Murder and arrest
In Robinson, Texas, Lucy Fryer was murdered while alone at her house on May 8, 1916. She was found clubbed to death, sprawled across the doorway of the farm's seed shed. It was a grisly scene that included signs of sexual assault. Officials determined a blunt instrument was used as the murder weapon. She and her husband George were English immigrants and had become well respected in the rural community where they operated a farm. News of the death quickly reached the McLennan County Sheriff, Samuel Fleming, who immediately investigated with a team of law enforcement officers, a group of local men, and a doctor. The doctor determined that Fryer had been killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. The local men suspected that Jesse Washington, a seventeen-year-old black youth who had worked on the Fryers' farm for five months, was responsible. One man said that he had seen Washington near the Fryer house a few minutes before Lucy's body was discovered.
That night, sheriff's deputies traveled to Washington's home, finding him in front of the house wearing blood-stained overalls. He said the stains were from a nosebleed. Jesse, his brother William, and their parents were taken to nearby Waco to be questioned by the county sheriff's department; although Jesse's parents and brother were released after a short time, he was held for further interrogation without an attorney or his parents present. His questioners in Waco reported that he denied complicity in Fryer's death, but offered contradictory details about his actions. Rumors spread after Washington's arrest that the youth had been in an altercation with a white man a few days before the murder.
On May 9, Sheriff Fleming took Washington to neighboring Hill County to prevent vigilante action. The Hill County sheriff, Fred Long, questioned Washington with Fleming. Washington eventually told them he had killed Fryer following an argument about her mules and described the murder weapon and its location. Long then brought Washington to Dallas, while Fleming returned to Robinson. Fleming soon reported that he found a bloody hammer where Washington had indicated. In Dallas, Washington dictated and signed a statement that described the rape and murder of Fryer; the confession was published the next day in Waco newspapers. Newspapers sensationalized the murder, describing Fryer's attempts to resist Washington's attack, but the doctor who had examined her body concluded that she was killed before any assault. A lynch mob assembled in Waco that night to search the local jail, but dispersed after failing to find Washington. A local paper praised their effort. That night, a small, private funeral and burial were held for Lucy Fryer.
A grand jury was assembled on May 11 in McLennan County and quickly returned an indictment against Washington; the trial was scheduled for May 15. The Times-Herald of Waco published a notice on May 12 requesting that residents let the justice system determine Washington's fate. Sheriff Fleming traveled to Robinson on May 13 to ask residents to remain calm; his address was well received. Washington was assigned several inexperienced lawyers. His lawyers prepared no defense and noted that he appeared placid in the days before the trial.
Trial and lynching
On the morning of May 15, Waco's courthouse quickly filled to capacity in anticipation of the trial: the crowd almost prevented some jurors from entering. Observers also filled the sidewalks around the courthouse; more than two thousand spectators were present. Attendees were almost entirely white, but a few quiet members of Waco's black community were present. As Washington was led into the courtroom, one audience member pointed a gun at him but was quickly overpowered. As the trial commenced, Judge Richard Irby Munroe attempted to keep order, insisting that the audience remain silent. Jury selection proceeded quickly: the defense did not challenge any selections of the prosecution. Judge Munroe asked Washington for a plea and explained the potential sentences. Washington muttered a response, possibly "yes", interpreted by the court as a guilty plea.
The prosecution described the charges, and the court heard testimony from law enforcement officers and the doctor who examined Fryer's body. The doctor discussed how Fryer died but did not mention rape. The prosecution rested, and Washington's attorney asked him whether he had committed the offense. Washington replied, "That's what I done" and quietly apologized. The lead prosecutor addressed the courtroom and declared that the trial had been conducted fairly, prompting an ovation from the crowd. The jury was sent to deliberate.
After four minutes of deliberation, the jury's foreman announced a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. The trial lasted about one hour. Court officers approached Washington to escort him away but were pushed aside by a surge of spectators, who seized Washington and dragged him outside. Washington initially fought back, biting one man, but was soon beaten. A chain was placed around his neck, and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he was taken to city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building. Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hanged from the tree by a chain, and lowered to the ground. Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals. The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death. German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering. Washington attempted to climb the chain but was unable to do so without fingers. The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain. One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia; a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs. By the time the fire was extinguished, parts of Washington's arms and legs had been burned off, his torso and head were charred and his cranium was exposed. His body was removed from the tree and dragged behind a horse throughout the town. Washington's remains were transported to Robinson, where they were publicly displayed until a constable obtained the body late in the day and buried it.
The spectacle of the lynching drew a large crowd estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 at its peak, including the mayor John Dollins and the chief of police Guy McNamara, although lynching was illegal in Texas. Sheriff Fleming told his deputies not to try to stop the lynching, and no one was arrested after the event. Bernstein speculates that Fleming may have wanted to be seen as dealing harshly with crime to help his candidacy for re-election that year. Mayor John Dollins may have also encouraged the mob for political benefit.
Residents had telephoned acquaintances to spread the word of the lynching, allowing spectators to gather more quickly and in greater numbers than before the advent of telephones. Local media reported that "shouts of delight" were heard as Washington burned, although they noted that some attendees disapproved. The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune maintained that several black Waco residents attended, a claim historian Grace Hale of the University of Virginia considers dubious. Waco residents, who likely had no connection with the rural Fryer family, constituted most of the crowd. Some people from nearby rural communities traveled to the city before the trial to witness the events. As the lynching occurred at midday, children from local schools walked downtown to observe, some climbing into trees for a better view. Many parents approved of their children's attendance, hoping that the lynching would reinforce a belief in white supremacy. Some Texans saw participation in a lynching as a rite of passage for young white men.
Aftermath
Fred Gildersleeve, a Waco-based professional photographer, arrived at city hall shortly before the lynching, possibly at the mayor's request, and photographed the event. His photographs provide rare depictions of a lynching in progress, rather than typical lynching photography, which shows only dead victims. Gildersleeve's photographs include views of the crowd shot from a building and close images of Washington's body; some may have been taken by an assistant. Gildersleeve produced postcards featuring images of adolescents, some as young as twelve, gathered around Washington's body. The individuals in the photographs did not attempt to hide their identities. Berg believes that their willingness to be photographed indicates that they knew that no one would be prosecuted for Washington's death. Although some Waco residents sent the cards to out-of-town relatives, several prominent local citizens persuaded Gildersleeve to stop selling them, fearing that the images would damage the town's reputation.