## Claude Neal Arrested

A search was immediately begun for Claude Neal. He was arrested on the peanut farm belonging to John Green. When Neal was arrested he told officers that another man, Herbert Smith, was associated with him in the crime. Smith was later arrested and he and Neal were taken to the nearby woods and questioned. I am reliably informed that Neal had been in a fight with Herbert Smith on the Saturday previous and that in the fight "Herbert had whipped him." In order to "get even" with Smith, Neal sought to involve him in the case. Smith later related the entire incident to an informant who described Smith as being literally scared to death. Neal finally admitted that Smith had nothing to do with the crime and that he alone was involved. Smith was subsequently released by the officers.

## Claude Neal and Lola Cannidy

Claude Neal and Lola Cannidy had always lived in the same neighborhood. Mrs. Smith's home (Neal's mother) was just across the road from the Cannidy home. Neal had played with the Cannidy children and when he was large enough to work, worked on the Cannidy farm. For some months, and possibly for a period of years, Claude Neal and Lola Cannidy had been having intimate relations with each other. The nature of their relationship was common knowledge in the Negro community. Some of his friends advised him of the danger of the relationship and had asked him not to continue it. Miss Cannidy, it seems, desired to break the relationship existing between herself and Neal and the fatal meeting was prearranged for the purpose of arriving at some understanding. At the meeting in the woods Miss Cannidy told Neal that she did not want him to speak to her again and that if he did so she would tell the white men in the community on him. (Should Miss Cannidy have "told on him" it would have meant certain death.) When she told Neal that she wanted to "quit" and further threatened to "tell on him," he "got mad and killed her." Neal later told a friend what had happened. Neal is reported to have told the friend, "When she said she didn't want me to speak to her and then told me that she'd tell the white men on me, I just got mad and killed her."

## Was Claude Neal Guilty?

When I first arrived in Marianna I heard that there was serious doubt as to Neal's guilt. The rumor was that a white man had murdered Lola Cannidy, had taken the bloody garments to Neal's home to have them washed and had later laid the murder on Neal. Knowing how often innocent Negroes are framed by guilty white men I gave particular attention to the theory. I was unable to find any substantial support for this theory among the Negroes in the Greenwood community. It is entirely possible that due to the great terror under which Negroes all over this section of Florida are living that they were too frightened to say or do anything which might cause them to become the victims of another mob as had so recently descended upon them. Feeling was running so high during the period of investigation that it was not safe for a citizen to ask too many questions about the lynching. Naturally it was difficult for an outsider to carry out a thorough investigation of every particular. The account of the murder came to me from the most reliable sources including white and Negro informers. I still have some doubts in my mind but I accept the story as told as the most plausible and reliable account which I received.

## State of Public Opinion as Revealed in the Local Press

(1) Statement from George Cannidy in Marianna *Daily Times-Courier*.

Headline: YOU CAN'T KNOW HOW IT HURTS UNLESS THIS HAPPENS TO YOU, STATES FATHER OF YOUNG GIRL

"Lord, but you can't know how it hurts unless you had something like this happen to someone you loved... The bunch have promised me that they will give me first chance at him when they bring him back and I'm ready. We'll put those two logs on him and ease him off by degrees. I can't get the picture of Lola out of my mind when we found her. Her throat was bruised and scratched where he had choked her so she couldn't cry out. My son was in the field about a quarter of a mile away when he saw someone talking with her at the pump, but he thought it was just one of the local boys and didn't pay much attention. He was right there in the field when she was being killed. Her head was beat in and she had been choked so hard her eyes were coming out of their sockets, her arms were broken

Note mutilation of Neal's chest and thighs. Note also how fingers have been cut from hands as souvenirs. After this picture was taken toes were cut from the feet as souvenirs. An "enterprising" local photographer made post cards of this picture which were sold in large quantities at fifty cents each.

[5]

Do not look at the Negro.

His earthly problems are ended.

Instead, look at the seven WHITE children who gaze at this gruesome spectacle.

Is it horror or gloating on the face of the neatly dressed seven-year-old girl on the right?

Is the tiny four-year-old on the left old enough, one wonders, to comprehend the barbarism her elders have perpetrated?

Rubin Stacy, the Negro, who was lynched at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 19, 1935, for "threatening and frightening a white woman," suffered PHYSICAL torture for a few short hours. But what psychological havoc is being wrought in the minds of the white children? Into what kinds of citizens

["will they grow up? What kind of America will they help to make after being\nfamiliarized with such an inhuman, law-destroying practice as lynching?", "The manacles, too, tell their own story. The Negro was powerless in the\nhands of the law, but the law was just as powerless to protect him from being\nlynched. Since 1922 over one-half the lynched victims have been taken from\nlegal custody. Less than one percent of the lynchers have been punished, and\nthey very lightly. More than 5,000 such instances of lynching have occurred\nwithout any punishment whatever, establishing beyond doubt that federal\nlegislation is necessary, as in the case of kidnapping, to supplement state action.", "What, you may ask, can YOU do?", "In May, 1935, a filibuster in the United States Senate, led by a small group\nof senators, most of them from the states with the worst lynching record, suc-\nceeded in side-tracking the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill. This bill\nwill be brought up again in the 1936 session of Congress.", "1. Write to your Congressmen and to the two United States Senators from your state urging them to work assiduously and vote for passage of the bill.", "2. Get the church, lodge or other fraternal organization, social club, and whatever other groups you belong to to pass resolutions urging Congressmen and Senators from your state to vote for the bill.", "3. Write letters to your newspapers and magazines urging their help.", "4. Make as generous a contribution as you can to the organization which for twenty-five years has fought this evil and which is acting as a coordinating agent of church, labor, fraternal and other groups, with a total membership of 42,000,000, which are working for passage of the Costigan-Wagner Bill.", "THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE\nADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE", "69 Fifth Avenue, New York", "N.A.A.C.P.", "69 Fifth Avenue, New York", "Here is my contribution of $. . . . . . . . . . .

"He Came to His Death at
the Hands of Parties Unknown"

International News Photo

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA TIMES
FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1936

### AGAINST LYNCHING

THE recent lynching of Lint Shaw, Georgia of the Negro, is cited by Senator Van Nuys as a new argument for passage of his resolution to appropriate $750 for a Senate investigation of lynching.
Senator Van Nuys, who piloted the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill through the Judiciary Committee, introduced the resolution to give the bill impetus for passage after it was stalled by a threat of filibuster by Southern Senators.

The Van Nuys resolution is now in the Audit and Control Committee, of which Senator Byrnes (D., C.) is chairman.

The lynching of this Negro again proves that states are incapable of handling the lynching problem," Senator Van Nuys said.

"I intend to bring this to Senator Byrnes' attention."

House is being circulated by Rep. Cavanagh (D., N.Y.), its author. Several others are pending in committee.

Lynching should be made a Federal crime.

## TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SEVENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS:

We sympathize with your desire to see the
Congress adjourn so that you may go home to
begin your preparations for the November
elections.

But forty-two million Americans, representing every section of the country and all races, ask you to study the gruesome picture above. The grisly object reclining against the tree is the body of Lint Shaw, saved once from lynching by the heroic action of an aged judge at Royston, Georgia, but killed by a mob just as he was about to be placed on trial. Shaw was one of three persons lynched within a period of six days—from April 28 to May 3. It is reported in the press that an American flag floated in the air above the lynched body.

Over 5,000 persons, men and women, white and black, have been lynched in America since 1882.

Light punishment has been given lynchers in
ONLY 8/10 of ONE PER CENT of the
LYNCHINGS. Most communities make no
effort to arrest lynchers.

For two years thirty-two anti-lynching bills have gathered dust in the House Judiciary Committee because of the implacable opposition of a small minority of members of the House. In the Senate the filibuster of April-May, 1935, against the Costigan-Wagner bill and the failure of the

Senate Audit and Control Committee even to
hold hearings on the Van Nuys resolution for a
Senate investigation of the lynchings of 1935
following the filibuster, have blocked action
there.

Twenty-five authenticated lynchings and
117 narrowly averted ones since the filibuster of
the spring of 1935, and the failure to punish
lynchers and would-be lynchers who have
flouted law and decency, prove beyond any doubt
that only federal legislation can stop this evil.

It has been said that the government of the
United States of America is powerless to prevent
lynchings such as the one pictured above.

We don't believe it. The federal government
can stop lynching if it wishes to do so, if the
gentlemen of the Congress will take the proper
action. The government has stopped kidnapping. It can stop lynching.

While America is being held up to shame before the civilized world by bestial mobs unchecked by any police authority, local, state, or federal, certain of our lawmakers have hidden behind phrases and technicalities so as to preserve for the citizens of certain communities the right to stage bloody orgies of personal vengeance.

A nation which tolerates lynching will become eventually a nation where law and order on all matters will be flouted contemptuously. No person, no group, no institution and later no property will be safe from mobs.

We appeal to you individually and collectively to let nothing prevent passage—before adjournment of the Seventy-fourth Congress—of the Costigan-Wagner bill in the Senate and its counterpart in the House of Representatives.

Among the organizations demanding passage of anti-lynching legislation at this session are:

The Young Women's Christian Association

The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America

The American Federation of Labor

The Women's Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South)

The National Council of Women

The American Jewish Committee

Numerous Catholic groups and organizations

The Maryland and District of Columbia Departments of the American Legion

The General Court of Massachusetts

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Legislatures of ten states.

These groups demand that action be taken, in the words of the WORLD-TELEGRAM editorial, reproduced above, to stamp out lynching precisely as federal action has been used against kidnappers.

New York World-Telegram

AND THE EVENING MAIL

ROT W. HOWARD President and Editor
LEE H. WOOD Executive Editor
RAY A. HUBER Vice President and Publisher

Phone Bldg. 21st

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1936

THE "G" WAY FOR LYNCHERS.

J. EDGAR HOOVER'S G-men are entitled to all the credit they are getting. And they are getting it in full measure. For when results are forthcoming the public is not niggarding with its appreciation.

With the arrest and confession of that elusive female impersonator, Thomas H. Robinson, Jr., the G-men have completed the round-up of kidnappers. For the first time since passage of the Lindbergh law, which made kidnapping for ransom a federal offense, there are no known or alleged kidnappers at large.

Here is the record of four years of intense and intelligent activity of the G-men—Sixty-three kidnapping cases cleared up, 146 convictions, twenty more prisoners in custody awaiting trial, prison sentences totaling 2,028 years, twenty-nine life sentences, four death sentences.

Of course, it is possible that the slate which is clean today may not look so good next week. New bands of kidnappers may spring up. A new wave of kidnapping may sweep the country, striking terror into the hearts of parents. That may happen, but we don't expect it. We don't, because Mr. Hoover's G-men have put terror in the hearts of the average American. They have brought into the picture that most effective of all crime deterrents—fear of certain punishment.

All we have said here concerns the crime of kidnapping for ransom—a crime with which State and local police proved themselves utterly incapable to cope. So Congress made it a federal crime. The record is proof of the superiority of an intelligently directed and mobile force of law enforcement, unhampered by State lines, unhindered by local political influences.

Kidnapping for ransom became a federal crime because of the default of local law enforcement. That are other crimes which local law officers apparently are unable or unwilling to combat.

One in particular is the crime of lynching.

There hasn't been a new case of kidnapping for months. Why? Because of that fear of certain punishment.

But there have been at least a half dozen cases of mob murder in recent years. Why?

The bill has been enacted, so that a few of Mr. Hoover's G-men may be sent, for example, into Georgia to instill anew the respect for the right of trial by jury.

Issued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 69 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. and 21 cooperating organizations. May, 1936.

ON THE WITNESS STAND AMY MALLARD COLLAPSES WHILE TELLING HOW HER HUSBAND WAS KILLED, FALLS TO THE FLOOR PRAYING AND WEEPING HYSTERICALLY

WIDOW OF LYNCH VICTIM SOBS OUT HER GRIEF

These striking photographs of human grief and terror were made by LIFE Photographer Francis Miller last week in a little courtroom in Lyons, Ga. To the witness stand went Amy Mallard, teacher and widow of Robert Mallard, to tell how her husband had been shot to death last November by a mob of white men who considered him too "uppity." Although she has feared for her own life ever since, she began her story calmly, telling how she and her husband were riding in their brand-new

automobile. Then, as she told of the hooded men swarming about the car on a lonely country road, of the pistol shots that pierced the darkness, her body twisted in anguish and she suddenly shouted, "It was horrible! Oh Lawdy, oh murder! They killed him. . . . I can see them!" Her voice rose to a high wail and she dropped to the floor on her knees. "I can see them. . . . Oh murder! Murder!"

In the courtroom crowd—composed largely of loyal Toombs County citizens who resented

prosperous Robert Mallard for being "nigger rich"—several men snickered out loud. Finally Mrs. Mallard's hysteria subsided and the trial resumed. A dozen witnesses testified that the Mallards' reputation was "bad," that the reputation of Defendant William Howell was "good." Even two jurors, called as witnesses in an old common-law courtroom maneuver, testified that they would not believe Mrs. Mallard under oath. The jury went out for 25 minutes and brought in a not-guilty verdict.

STOP ANOTHER LYNCHING

Ryals Must Not Be Sent Back Georgia - to Sure Death

DIXIE "JUSTICE"

The Negro's Progress.

For many years the annual statistics which shamed Americans was the tabulation of lynchings by Tuskegee Institute, the noted Negro college in Alabama. The only consolation was that the total got smaller almost every year.

Now, for two years running, the figure has been zero. As a result, Tuskegee concludes that lynchings are no longer a measuring stick for race relations, and announces that it will base its annual reports hereafter on other material.

The Negro draws small comfort, however, from the mere fact that his life is in less danger from hoodlums. He had that assurance under slavery.

What is much more cheering to him is the real progress his race has made in only a few years, in the South as well as other regions, towards equality of opportunity. "Jim Crow" is a great deal more than physical segregation, which would exist to a large degree even were there no laws on the subject. It is the denial to the Negro of the right to compete for jobs even when he is unquestionably qualified for them, and hence a harsh economic barrier to better housing, better education for his children, and the other good things of life he desires and which some people think can be given him simply by repealing certain laws.

When Tuskegee in future years tabulates the statistics in that important field of race relations, we hope it will find a continuation of the recent steady progress and eventually will find all such tabulations outdated, too.