then its head was crushed by a member of the mob with his heel. Hundreds of bullets were then fired into the body of the woman, now mercifully dead, and the work was over.³²

LYNCHERS ARE NOT PUNISHED

The lynching of Negroes is the more significant since the States make no real effort to punish the lynchers.

A member of the Maryland bar writing in 1900 said that less than a dozen lynchers had even been tried for their crimes, and only two had been punished. The present writer has been able to obtain no information that would warrant the statement that as many as twenty-five persons had been convicted of a crime and punished for participating in the lynching of over 3,000 persons in the last twenty-two years.³³

Here is evidence of the state of mind which leads to lynching.

Judge Charles H. Brand ordered Allen brought to Munroe for trial although it was known that the citizens had organized a mob to lynch him. The judge was offered troops by the Governor to protect the prisoner, but refused…. The same judge had refused to ask for troops on a previous occasion, saying that he would “not imperil the life of one man to save the lives of a hundred Negroes.”³⁴

In North Carolina on one occasion heroic efforts were made to prevent a lynching and punish lynchers:

Realizing that if a lyncher is permitted to remain unpunished the decency of the community is greatly endangered, Judge B. F. Long … sentenced fifteen white men to serve from fourteen months to six years in prison. The men were found guilty of attempting to lynch Russell High, a prisoner in the city jail…. The fifteen men were a part of a mob that for a night and a

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