The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

Leo Frank at the time of his trial

The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank is the subtitle of a book by Frey Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey (the title is awful, no doubt a concession to the publisher to sell books).  Despite this salacious title, this book is a well-researched, sober and organized attempt to make sense of the murder of thirteen year old Mary Phagan in Atlanta in 1913 in a pencil factor. 

Factory manager Leo Frank, a Jewish man, was charged with the murder.  Despite flimsy circumstantial evidence, the threat of mob violence and antisemitism Frank was convicted and sentenced to death.  In 1915, the governor of Georgia commuted his sentence to life in prison, believing that with time and a more sober assessment of the evidence, Frank would be eventually pardoned.  

Men and boys posing with Leo Frank's body, in a patch of woods near Marietta Georgia

But he never lived to see that day.  He was lynched in 1915 after being kidnapped from prison by the so-called “Knights of Mary Phagan”.  The core of this group became a resurrected Klu Klux Klan, which would grow in strength in the years before World War Two.  The blatant antisemitism of the Frank lynching led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation league.

In 1986, Leo Frank was pardoned by the state of Georgia.  He bears the unfortunate title of the only (known) Jewish person to be lynched in the United States.  Until recently, it was a high-water mark of Anti-Semitic violence in America.

Marker at the site of Leo Frank's lynching, just off highway 75 in Marietta