The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-27
Mob Cut Body of Negro
With Knives, Gave
Him 200 Wounds
BY CYRIL BRIGGS

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off his genitals and forced him to
eat them, an eyewitness to the
hideous lynch murder Of the young
Negro worker has revealed. 1t was
also revealed that there had been
a secret romance between Neal and
Lola Cannidy, the white girl for
whose murder he was arrested.
A report prepared from first hand
information by a young Southern
White university professor and sent
to the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People in
dicates that the girls relations with
the Negro worker were resented by
the lynchers, and that they muir
dered her and later had Neal ar
retsed for the crime.
Lynchers Sliced Stomach and Sides
The eyewitness quoted above
gave the professor further details
of the fiendish torture of Neal, who
was handed over by Alabama prison
| authorities to a lynch-committee,
kidnapped across the state line to
Florida and held for So hours while
the lynchers openly publicised their
plans and went ahead with the
preparations for the lynching, with
out interference from the State and
county governments or from the
Federal government which has
shown itself quite relentless in
hunting down and Furnishing the
kidnapers of rich men.
Neal was subjected to a terrible
torture for IL hours and wounded
in some 200 places, the eyewitness
told the investigator. After the
lynchers had cut off his genitals
and forced the tortured worker to
eat them, they sliced his sides and
stomach with knives and every now
and then somebody would cut off a
finger or toe. Red hot irons were
used on the niger to burn him
from top to bottom.
Hung from Limb Several Times
From time to time during the
torture rope would be tied around
Meals neck and he was pulled up
over limb and held there until
he almost choked to death when
he would be let down and the tor
ture would begin all over again.
After several hours of this torture
they decided just to kill him"
The Investigators report, after
quoting the eyewitness of the
actual lynching, gives further de-
tails collected from other sources:
Meals body was tied to a rope
on the rear of an automobile and
dragged over the highway to the
Cannidy home. Here a mob es-
timated to number somewhere be-
tween 5000 and 1000 from eleven
Southern States, was excitedly
awaiting his arrival. When the car
which was dragging Meals body
came in front of the Cannidy home,
man who was riding the rear
bumper cut the rope.
Woman Drives Knife Through
Heart
"a woman came out of the Can
nidy house and drove a butcher
knife through his heart. Then the
crowd came by and some kicked
him and some drove their cars over
him.
Men, women and children were
numbered in the vast throng that
came to witness The lynching.
1T was reported from reliable
sources that the little children,
some of them mere tots, who lived
in the Greenwood neighborhood,
waited with sharpened sticks for
the return of Meals body and that
when it rolled in the dust on the
road, these little children drove
their weapons deep into the flesh
Of the dead man.
Fingers for Souvenirs
THE body, which by this time
was horribly mutilated, was taken
by the mob to Mariana, q dis
tance of ten or eleven miles, where
it was hung to tree on the north
east corner of the courthouse
square. Pictures were taken of the
mutilated form and hundreds of
photographs were sold for SO cents
each. Scores of children viewed the
body as it hung in the square.
The body was perfectly nude
until the early morning when some
one had the decency to hang bur-
lap sack over the middle of the
body. The body was cut down
about $3.50 Saturday morning.
Fingers and toes from Meals
body have been exhibited as SOU
venirs in Mariana where one man
offered to divide the finger which
he had with friends as a special
favor Another man has one of
the fingers preserved in alcohol
Lynchers Terrorized Negroes
After the lynching of Neal, the
white lynchers went on a rampage
in the Negro section of Mariana,
Fla, beating up Negroes on sight,
burning their homes and attacking
Negro women. While this was 60
ing on, not a policeman or sheriff
deputy could be found. 1t was only
when the Negro workers began to
defend themselves that Gov. Sholtz