Records were kept, schedules followed. The apparatus of government abetted the apparatus of justification, with an overlay of pseudoscientific claptrap. The people who approved of or participated in these crimes sent photos of them via the U.S. mail, to share their subhuman pleasure with others. The barbecue was a man. As awful as the sight of the victims is, the pictures of the surrounding and avid crowds are more awful still.
Women draw close to their men as the flames rise.
The hats on the people at the lynching of Leo Frank, and at those of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, Isaac McGhie and Frank Embry. In another picture, a man is cooked like food before smiling men wearing hats. Sometimes we like to think we're all the same animal. Sometimes we don't. And sometimes the evidence of behavior is so appalling, we don't know what to think.