Private Justice and National Concern: The Lynching of Claude Neal

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Notes

1. Walter White to William Rosenwald, 16 November 1934, Files of NAACP, C‐78–79, Reel 12, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as NAACP Files).

2. Literature on the subject of lynching blacks in the modern South is varied and sophisticated. One of the best recent discussions which summarizes much of the relevant material is Sheldon Hackney's “Southern Violence,” American Historical Review 74 (February 1969): 906–25.

The most important critical study of lynchings in America is Arthur F. Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (Chapel Hill, 1933: reprint ed., New York, 1969). Raper, who uses extensive sociological field studies, attempts to construct a “social anatomy” of lynching by investigating the twenty‐one lynchings which occurred in America in the year 1930. For an economic interpretation, see Carl L. Hovland and R. R. Sears, “Correlations of Economic Indices with Lynchings,” Journal of Psychology 9 (1940): 301–10. These findings are also reported in John Dollard et al., Frustration and Aggression (New Haven, 1939), 31. See also Alexander Mintz, “A Re‐Examination of Correlations between Lynchings and Economic Indices,” in Racial Violence in the United States, ed. Allen D. Grimshaw (Chicago, 1969). A number of commentators have hypothesized that lynching is primarily caused by economic struggles between poor whites and blacks or because whites wished to exploit blacks for profits. See, for example, Jessie Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching (Atlanta, 1942), 15–16; Walter White, Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (New York, 1929), 82; and Raymond Wolters, Negroes and the Great Depression: The Problems of Economic Recovery (Westport,1970), 116–17. John Dollard in Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New Haven, 1937), 359–61, also expressed belief that blacks who endeavored to improve their status could easily be marked for death by a mob. Most treatments of vigilantism against blacks in the modern South explain the phenomenon as acts of intimidation by a dominant white caste to keep blacks subordinate to them. A major interpretation along this line is Dollard, Caste and Class, 315–63. See also Richard M. Brown, Strain of Violence (New York, 1975), 205–18; Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York, 1944), 560–64; and Raper, Tragedy of Lynching, 48–51. In variation, the same position is adopted by several other scholars, including Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (Chicago, 1941), 48–49; Donald L. Grant, The Anti‐Lynching Movement, 1883–1932 (San Francisco, 1975), 13; Claude H. Nolen, The Negro's Image in the South (Lexington, 1967), 47–49; and George B. Tindall, South Carolina Negroes, 1887–1900 (Columbia, 1952), 239. For recent psychological interpretations, see T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel‐Brunswick, DanielJ. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1959), 384–89; and H.Jon Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg, eds. Vigilante Politics (Philadelphia, 1976), 3–29.

3. “Lynching by Counties,” Files of Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynchings, Trevor‐Arnett Library, Negro Collection, Atlanta University. Hillsborough County in Florida also had six lynchings during this period. Raper, Tragedy of Lynching, 483.

4. Although Jackson County was linked both by rail and by numerous roads with all parts of Florida and by roads with Georgia and Alabama, few of its residents had cars or used trains. Few read national magazines. The local newspapers, the Times‐Courier and the Floridan, were both weeklies and were both almost entirely concerned with Jackson County news. Jackson County provided less than .3 percent of Florida's manufactured goods in 1933. See Florida State Planning Board, Statistical Abstract of Florida Counties, Jackson County (Jacksonville, 1944), n.p.; and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Population, III, part 1 (Washington, D.C., 1932), 406.

5. Howard D. Odum, Southern Regions of the United States (New York, 1969), 276.

6. For nostalgic glimpses of the old days, see Jackson County Floridan, 26 June 1931, 3, 8. The only history of Jackson County is J. Randall Stanley, History of Jackson County (Marianna, 1950).

7. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, III, part 1 (Washington, D.C., 1932), 406, 418.

8. There are many indices of poverty. Jackson County's ratio of inhabitants to car, 14:1, represented less than .1 percent of persons owning cars in the state of Florida in the 1930s. Florida State Planning Board, Statistical Abstract of Florida Counties, Jackson County. Only .2 percent of the population paid income taxes; ibid. Nearly one out of five children suffered from hookworm. See Charles S. Johnson, Statistical Atlas of Southern Counties: Listing and Analysis of Socio‐Economic Indices of 1104 Southern Counties (Chapel Hill, 1941), 78.

9. “The Lynching of Claude Neal,” report by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP Files, C‐352.

10. W.F. Chambliss to Governor David Sholtz, 31 October 1934, Official Correspondence Files of Governor, Lynching File, Florida State Archives (hereafter cited as Official Correspondence Files of Governor). Sheriff Chambliss made a detailed report of the entire incident upon request of Governor Sholtz. George Cannidy, Lola's father, owned twenty acres, two mules, and one cow according to Tax Lists, 1934, Jackson County Courthouse.

11. Jackson County Flondan, 26 October 1934, 8.

12. Chambliss to Sholtz, 31 October 1934, Official Correspondence Files of Governor, Lynching File.

13. Interview of Hugh M. Caffey, solicitor of Escambia County, Alabama, with Sheriff G.S. Byrne (n.d., 1934), in papers of Governor B.M. Miller, Alabama State Archives, Montgomery (copy) (hereafter cited as Miller Papers). Caffey obtained interviews in response to a demand by Governor Miller for an investigation of Neal's capture in Brewton. Gandy's decision to relocate Neal in Brewton was a fateful step because Brewton was a small town with an inadequate jail. Neal would probably have been safe in Mobile, Alabama, or at the federal facility for detention at Fort Barrancas near Pensacola.

14. A copy of Neal's confession with his mark on it is in the Miller Papers.

15. Interview of Hugh M. Caffey with jailer, Jack Shanholtzer (n.d., 1934), Miller Papers.

16. Interviews of Hugh M. Caffey with Sheriff G.S. Byrne and T.J. Criggers, operator of Gulf filling station in Brewton, both of whom saw occupants of cars from Brewton, Miller Papers.

17. United States Statutes at Large, 47, Stat. 326.

18. Dothan Eagle, 26 October 1934, 1. On radio reports, see “The Lynching of Claude Neal,” NAACP Files, C‐352.

19. The lynchers also spread the word that the site for the lynching would be the Cannidy farm. Pensacola Journal, 27 October 1934, 1. See also Tallahassee Democrat, 28 October 1934, 1, 8.

20. Dothan Eagle, 26 October 1934, 1.

21. Montgomery Advertiser, 27 October 1934, 1.

22. Tallahassee Democrat, 1 November 1934, 8.

23. Montgomery Advertiser, 27 October 1934, 1. Nearly every interview with persons who knew members of the mob confirms that its leaders came from the “good citizens” of Jackson County. All sources must remain confidential. Howard Kester, who investigated the incident for the NAACP, reported, “I have it from the most authoritative sources that certain prominent businessmen and leaders from the best families were in the mob.” Howard Kester to Walter White, 8 November 1934, NAACP Files, C‐352.

24. Erich Fromm observes that “the person who has complete control over another living being makes that being into a thing, his property, while he becomes the other being's god.” He notes that racial minorities, if powerless, offer this opportunity to majorities. See Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York, 1973), 289–90.

25. Authors' interview with confidential source.

26. Howard Kester to Walter While, 7 November 1934, NAACP Files, C‐352.

27. NAACP, “The Lynching of Claude Neal” (New York, 1934), 8.

28. The Lynching of Claude Neal,” NAACP Files, C‐352.

29. Jackson County Floridan, 2 November 1934, 8.

30. More than twenty calls were made by concerned persons in Marianna to the governor's office between 1:30 P.M. and 4:30 P.M., October 27. “Marianna Mob,” in papers of Governor David Sholtz, Lynching File, Florida State Archives.

31. Ibid.

32. Authors' interview with Filmore Sims, Marianna, 26 September 1977 (written).

33. Authors' interview with a group of blacks who participated in the riots as victims, Marianna, 15 July 1977 (confidential source).

34. Interview of Walter T. Howard with Tommy Smith, 7 July 1977 (written). Mr. Smith, a resident of Panama City, Florida, drove to Marianna, October 27, 1934.

35. Montgomery Advertiser, 29 October 1934, 1, 2.

36. Ibid.

37. NAACP, “The Lynching of Claude Neal,” 7–8.

38. Sholtz asked for a complete investigation and report from Sheriff Chambliss and state's attorney in Marianna, John H. Carter. However, he accepted Chambliss's report with “you did all you possibly could” and accepted without protest a complete whitewashing of the Neal lynching from the Jackson County Grand Jury. See Tallahassee Democrat, 1 November 1934, 1, and Governor David Sholtz to John Carter, 27 October 1934, Official Correspondence Files of Governor, Lynching File.

39. Jackson County Floridan, 18 November 1934, 1.

40. Ibid.

41. Burton managed to find a basis for community esteem in Marianna's riot when he inquired of Governor Sholtz, “In the final analysis, don't you really think that the city of Marianna is entitled to some credit for staging a ‘bloodless riot’.” John W. Burton to Governor David Sholtz, 30 October 1934, Official Correspondence Files of Governor, Lynching File.

42. Chambliss added, “That mob crowd who tried to seize Bud Gammons [black victim] was led by a bunch of—rascals, and some of them were from Alabama. Montgomery Advertiser, 29 October 1934, 2.

43. Walter White to Governor David Sholtz, 30 October 1934, Official Correspondence Files of Governor, Lynching File. NAACP, “The Lynching of Claude Neal,” 3, records headlines in fifteen major newspapers in different parts of the country. Telegram from Writers' League against Lynching to Governor David Sholtz, 24 October 1934, Papers of Governor David Sholtz, Lynching File, Florida State Archives, describes radio broadcast in New York preceding lynching.

44. Walter White to Boake Carter, 27 October 1934, NAACP Files, C‐352. The Costigan‐Wagner Anti‐Lynching bill which was defeated in Congress in 1934 before the time of the Neal lynching was reintroduced in the 74th Congress in 1935. The bill defined a mob, provided for federal action through federal district courts if slates or local agents did not act against lynchers within thirty days, and proposed a fine of $10,000 on counties where lynchings occurred. See Robert L. Zangrando, “The Efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to Secure Passage of a Federal Anti‐Lynching Law, 1920–1940” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1963), 307–8.

45. NAACP Files, C‐78–79, reel 12.

46. Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, 8 November 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, 1352, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park.

47. Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter White, 20 November 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, 1352 (copy).

48. Ibid. (copy).

49. For a brief and accurate discussion of a complicated question about the reaction of Attorney General Cummings and the Justice Department to the Neal lynching, see Zangrando, “The Efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” 326–29.

50. Walter White, A Man Called White (New York, 1945), 167–70.

51. Punishment for the Crime of Lynching: Hearing before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 74th Cong., 1st sess., on 5:24, 14 February 1935, 41–46.

52. Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, 10 April 1935, NAACP Files, C‐352.

53. Tuskegee Institute Archives, Tuskegee, Alabama.

54. The NAACP files contain many more newspaper clippings and headlines about the Neal lynching than on any other lynching of a black. Most major newspapers reported the event and many, including the New York Times (28 October 1934), devoted front‐page coverage. Editorials appeared in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Birmingham News, Boston Herald; Chattanooga News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Macon Telegraph, Montgomery Advertiser, Richmond Times Dispatch, Washington Post, and New Republic. NAACP Files, C‐352.

55. Marianna Times Courier, 8 November 1934, 2, and Jackson County Flondan, 2 November 1934, 1.

56. Richmond Times Dispatch, 2 February 1937, 4.

57. “Telegram from Mrs. William P. Cornell to Governor David Sholtz, 21 March 1935, and Governor Sholtz to Mrs. Cornell, 12 April 1935, in Florida State Archives, Papers of Governor Sholtz, Lynching File.

58. Ames, Changing Character of Lynching.

59. Virginius Dabney, “Dixie Rejects Lynching,” Nation 145 (27 November 1937): 581;Congressional Record, 74th Cong., 1st sess. (15 April 1937), 3523.

60. Ames, Changing Character of Lynching, 16.

61. Jesse W. Reader, “Federal Efforts to Control Lynching” (M.A. thesis, Cornell University, 1952), 90–98.

62. See Walter White's remark in Punishment for the Crime of Lynching, US Senate, 35–39, and Walter White to President Roosevelt, 17June 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Presidential Personal File, 1336, Hyde Park.

63. Robert K. Carr, Federal Regulations of Civil Rights: Quest for a Sword (New York, 10 1947), 164.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James R. McGovern

James R. McGovern is Professor of History at the University of of West Florida. Walter T. Howard is a doctoral student at Florida State University.

Walter T. Howard

James R. McGovern is Professor of History at the University of of West Florida. Walter T. Howard is a doctoral student at Florida State University.