The
NAACP hoped that the election of Franklin
D. Roosevelt in 1932 would bring an end to lynching.
Two African American campaigners against lynching, Mary
McLeod Bethune and Walter Francis White,
had been actively involved in helping Roosevelt to obtain victory.
The president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt,
had also been a long-time opponent of lynching.
Robert
F. Wagner and
Edward
Costigan agreed
to draft an anti-lynching bill. The legislation proposed federal trials
for any law enforcement officers who failed to exercise their responsibilities
during a lynching incident.
In
1935 attempts were made to persuade Roosevelt to support the Costigan-Wagner
bill. However, Roosevelt refused to speak out in favour of the bill.
He argued that the white voters in the South would never forgive him
if he supported the bill and he would therefore lose the next election.
Even
the appearance in the newspapers of the lynching of Rubin
Stacy failed to change Roosevelt's mind on the subject. Six deputies
were escorting Stacy to Dade County jail in Miami on 19th July, 1935,
when he was taken by a white mob and hanged by the side of the home
of Marion Jones, the woman who had made the original complaint against
him. The New York Times later
revealed that "subsequent investigation revealed that Stacy,
a homeless tenant farmer, had gone to the house to ask for food; the
woman became frightened and screamed when she saw Stacy's face."
The
Costian-Wagner Act received support from many members of Congress
but the Southern opposition managed to defeat it. However, the
national debate that took place over the issue helped to bring attention
to the crime of lynching.
(1)
Costigan-Wagner
Bill, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session
(3rd January, 1935)
A bill
to assure to persons within the jurisdiction of every State the equal
protection of the laws, and punish the crime of lynching
Be it enacted by the Senate
and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That, for the purposes of this Act, the phrase “mob
or riotous assemblage”, when used in this Act, shall mean an
assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert, without
authority of law, [for the purpose of depriving any person of his
life, or doing him physical injury] to kill or injure any person in
the custody of any peace officer, with the purpose or consequence
of depriving such person of due process of law or the equal protection
of the laws.
Sec. 2. If any state or
governmental, subdivision thereof fails, neglects, or refuses to provide
and maintain protection to the life or person of any individual within
its jurisdiction against a mob or riotous assemblage, whether by way
of preventing or punishing the acts thereof, such State shall by reason
of such failure, neglect, or refusal be deemed to have denied to such
person due process of law and the equal protection of the laws of
the State, and to the end that the protection guaranteed to persons
within the jurisdiction of the United States, may be secured, the
provisions of this Act are enacted.
Sec. 3. (a) Any officer
or employee of any State or governmental subdivision thereof who is
charged with the duty or who possesses the power or authority as such
officer or employee to protect the life or person of any individual
injured or put to death by any mob or riotous assemblage or any officer
or employee of any State or governmental subdivision thereof having
any such individual in his [change as a prisoner] custody, who fails,
neglects, or refuses to make all diligent efforts to protect such
individual from being so injured or being put to death, or any officer
or employee of any State or governmental subdivision thereof charged
with the duty of apprehending, keeping in custody, or prosecuting
any person participating in such mob or riotous assemblage who fails,
neglects, or refuses to make all diligent efforts to perform his duty
in apprehending, keeping in custody, or prosecuting to final judgment
under the laws of such State all persons so participating, shall be
guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished
by a fine not exceeding $5,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding five
years, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
(b) Any officer or employee
of any state or governmental subdivision thereof, acting as such officer
or employee under authority of State law, having in his custody or
control a prisoner, who shall conspire, combine, or confederate with
any person who is a member of a mob or riotous assemblage to injure
or put such prisoner to death without authority of law, or who shall
conspire, combine, or confederate with any person to suffer such prisoner
to be taken or obtained from his custody or control [for the purpose
of being] to be injured or put to death [without authority of law]
by a mob or riotous assemblage shall be guilty of a felony, and those
who so conspire, combine, or confederate with such officer or employee
shall likewise be guilty of a felony. On conviction the parties participating
therein shall be punished by imprisonment of not less than five years
or [for life] not more than twenty-five years.
Sec. 4. The District Court
of the United States judicial district wherein the person is injured
or put to death by a mob or riotous assemblage shall have jurisdiction
to try and to punish, in accordance with the laws of the State where
the injury is inflicted or the homicide is committed, any and all
persons who participate therein: Provided, That it is first made to
appear to such court (1) that the officers of the State charged with
the duty of apprehending, prosecuting, and punishing such offenders
under the laws of the State shall have failed, neglected, or refused
to apprehend, prosecute, or punish such offenders; or (2) that the
jurors obtainable for service in the State court having jurisdiction
of the offense are so strongly opposed to such punishment that there
is [no] probability that those guilty of the offense [can be] will
not be punished in such State court. A failure for more than thirty
days after the commission of such an offense to apprehend or to indict
the persons guilty thereof, or a failure diligently to prosecute such
persons, shall be sufficient to constitute prima facie evidence of
the failure, neglect, or refusal described in the above proviso.
Sec. 5. Any county in which
a person is seriously injured or put to death by a mob or riotous
assemblage shall [forfeit $10,000, which sum may be recovered by suit
therefor in the name of the United States against such county for
the use of the family, if any, of the person so put to death; if he
had no family then of his dependent parents, if any; otherwise for
the use of the United States] be liable to the injured person or the
legal representatives of such person for a sum of not less than $2,000
nor more than $10,000 as liquidated damages, which sum may be recovered
in a civil action against such county in the United States District
Court of the judicial district wherein such person is put to the injury
or death. Such action shall be brought and prosecuted by the United
States district attorney [of the United States] of the district in
the United States District Court for such district. If such [forfeiture]
amount awarded be not paid upon recovery of a judgment thereof, such
court shall have jurisdiction to enforce payment thereof by levy of
execution upon any property of the county, or may otherwise compel
payment thereof by mandamus or other appropriate process; and any
officer of such county or other person who disobeys or fails to comply
with any lawful order of the court in the premises shall be liable
to punishment as for contempt and to any other penalty provided by
law therefor. The amount recovered shall be exempt from all claims
by creditors of the deceased. The amount recovered upon such judgment
shall be paid to the injured person, or where death resulted, distributed
in accordance with the laws governing the distribution of an intestate
decendent’s assets then in effect in the State wherein such death
occurred.
Sec. 6. In the event that
any person so put to death shall have been transported by such mob
or riotous assemblage from one county to another county during the
time intervening between his seizure and putting to death, the county
in which he is seized and the county I which he is put to death shall
be jointly and severally liable to pay the forfeiture herein provided.
Any district judge of the United States District Court of the judicial
district wherein any suit or prosecution is instituted under the provisions
of this Act, may by order district that such suit or prosecution be
tried in any place in such district as he may designate in such order.
Sec. 7. Any act committed
in any State or Territory of the United States in violation of the
rights of a citizen or subject of a foreign country secured to such
citizen or subject by treaty between the United States and such foreign
country, which act constitute a like crime against the peace and dignity
of the United States, punishable in a like manner in its courts as
in the courts of said State or Territory, and able in a like manner
in its courts as in the courts of said State or Territory, and may
be prosecuted in the courts of the United States, and upon conviction
the sentence executed in like manner as sentences upon convictions
for crimes under the laws of the United States.]
Sec. 8. If any provision
of this Act or the application thereof to any person or circumstances
is held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of
such provision to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected
thereby.]
(2)
Handbill, What You Can Do To Stop Lynching, published in January
1935.
The Costigan Wagner anti-lynching
bill will be introduced into Congress on January 3, 1935. A group
of national organizations, all vitally interested in the eradication
of lynching, have chosen the week of January 6 as the time when citizens
of the United States should voice their feeling on this bill in the
following ways:
1. Write or telegraph President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, The White House, Washington, D.C., asking him
to insist that the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill be brought to
a vote at this session of Congress and to use his influence to secure
its passage.
2. Write or telegraph Joseph
T. Robinson, Majority Leader of the Senate, Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC, asking him to put the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching
bill on the calendar for debate and vote at the earliest possible
time.
3. Write or telegraph the
two United States senators from your state, addressing them at the
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, asking them to help bring
the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill to a vote and to vote for its
passage.
4. Write or telegraph the
Congressman from your district, addressing him at the House Office
Building, Washington, DC, asking him to work for the passage of the
Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill and to use his influence with other
Congressmen.
The Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching
bill, but putting the prosecution of lynchers into the Federal court,
will provide the same kind of effective action as is now being taken
in kidnapping cases.
(3)
Roy
Wilkins interviewed Huey
P. Long for The
Crisis in February,
1935.
"How about lynching,
Senator? About the Costigan-Wagner bill in congress and that lynching
down there yesterday in Franklinton..."
He ducked the Costigan-Wagner
bill, but of course, everyone knows he is against it. He cut me off
on the Franklinton lynching and hastened in with his "pat"
explanation:
"You mean down in
Washington parish (county)? Oh, that? That one slipped up on us. Too
bad, but those slips will happen. You know while I was governor there
were no lynchings and since this man (Governor Allen) has been in
he hasn't had any. (There have been 7 lynchings in Louisiana in the
last two years.) This one slipped up. I can't do nothing about it.
No sir. Can't do the dead nigra no good. Why, if I tried to go after
those lynchers it might cause a hundred more niggers to be killed.
You wouldn't want that,
would you?"
"But you control
Louisiana," I persisted, "you could..."
"Yeah, but it's not
that simple. I told you there are some things even Huey
Long can't get away with. We'll just have to watch out for the next
one. Anyway that nigger was guilty of coldblooded murder."
"But your own supreme
court had just granted him a new trial."
"Sure we got a law
which allows a reversal on technical points. This nigger
got hold of a smart lawyer somewhere and proved a technicality. He
was guilty as hell. But we'll catch the next lynching."
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
