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VIRGINIA
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Anti-Lynching Law of 1928
Contributed by Douglas Smith
The Virginia Anti-Lynching Law of 1928, signed by
Virginia governor Harry Flood Byrd Sr. on March 14,
1928, was the first measure in the nation that defined
lynching specifically as a state crime. The bill's
enactment marked the culmination of a campaign
waged by Louis Isaac Jaffé, the editor of the Norfolk
Virginian-Pilot, who responded more forcefully than any
other white Virginian to an increase in mob violence in
the mid-1920s. Jaffé's efforts, however, which earned
him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1929, came
to fruition only after the state's political and business
leadership recognized that mob violence was a threat to
their efforts to attract business and industry. Ironically,
no white person was ever convicted of lynching an
African American under the law. MORE...
Virginia in a Regional Context
Fewer African Americans were lynched in Virginia than in any
other southern state in the twentieth century, a dubious
distinction, perhaps, but one that nevertheless reinforced for
white Virginians the superiority of their paternalistic system of
race relations. Though less active than elsewhere in the South,
mobs in Virginia summarily executed at least seventy blacks
between 1880 and 1930. As was the case throughout the rest of
the South, more lynchings occurred in the 1890s than in any other
decade, and each succeeding decade saw a drop in the numbers,
although often an increase in brutality. In Virginia, no lynchings
were officially recorded from 1906 to 1916; mobs took the lives of
two men in 1917 and one in 1918.
In his analysis of lynching in Virginia and Georgia, historian
Fitzhugh Brundage concluded that Virginia experienced fewer
lynchings between 1880 and 1930 because the state's diverse
economy did not depend on the more coercive labor-control
methods found in the deep South, where single-crop farming
dominated. Virginia landlords could afford to extend a small
degree of independence to black workers; in addition, the most
disgruntled blacks had an easier time migrating north merely as a
result of geographical proximity. Furthermore, elites in Virginia
opposed lynching as a disruption of social order in the same way
they objected to labor unrest. Consequently, most whites who
ultimately supported an antilynching statute emphasized a need
for law and order, not a respect for the rights of African
Americans.
Mob violence, however, remained essentially a local affair,
virtually unexplainable by larger models of behavior. Local mobs
responded to perceived causation and local officials usually chose
to take no action. State officials refused to intervene. During the
1920s, such local occurrences assumed statewide relevance. While
the rest of the South continued to note a decline in mob violence
in the 1920s, the frequency of mob deaths in the state increased.
Virginians lynched at least six black men in the 1920s, double the
number of the previous decade. Each instance of mob violence
further undermined the state's reputation at a time when the
press, political leaders, and business elites were working hard to
attract industry and manufacturing. Concurrently, groups such as
the Commission on Interracial Cooperation attacked mob violence
on moral grounds. In this climate, lynching emerged as a state
issue that required a state solution.
Lynching in the 1920s
In 1920, 1921, and 1923, mobs in Wise County, Brunswick County,
and King and Queen County carried out extralegal killings. More
than likely an additional lynching took place in Halifax County in
1920, although that murder was never officially recorded as such.
Each lynching elicited a chorus of condemnation from the state's
white press, but more often than not such criticism came with
qualifications. Louis Jaffé proved to be the exception. He
denounced the October 13, 1923 lynching of Horace Carter in King
and Queen County in the strongest terms yet to appear in a white
newspaper in the state, and called on local authorities to “make
public the names of the men capable, in the name of ‘justice,’ of
shooting to death an untried and unconvicted man while he lay on
the ground handcuffed and hobbled.” Predictably, local officials
took no action.
The failure of local officials, yet again, to respond to an
especially gruesome lynching in the Sussex County town of
Waverly in March 1925 prompted Jaffé to begin to embrace the
power of state government as an effective weapon in ending mob
law. (In this instance, a mob lynched a black man from a tree
near the railroad depot, riddling his body with bullets and then
setting it on fire, in plain view of an arriving train and its
passengers.) In particular Jaffé urged officials in Virginia to
emulate the actions of North Carolina's governor, Angus McLean,
who had called out the state militia to protect a black prisoner.
The August 1926 lynching of Raymond Bird in Wythe County,
however, first led Jaffé to raise the possibility of passing
legislation that would make lynching a state crime.
Bird's death was given a one-sentence mention in the August 23
issue of Time magazine: "At Wytheville, Va., last week gentry
stormed the county jail; shot Raymond Bird, 31, Negro; hanged his
black body to a tree." The reporting glossed over the grisly
specifics of the case, however. Bird was being held in jail accused
of assaulting the two white daughters of his employer, and while
local officials knew a mob had formed, they did little to protect
the prisoner. According to an Associated Press report, the mob
shot Bird and beat his head “into a pulp." They then tied a rope
around his neck, attached his corpse to a waiting automobile, and
dragged his body nine miles to the scene of his alleged assaults.
There, they strung his body to a tree and filled it with more
bullets.
Bird's lynching appeared to set a new precedent for savagery and
barbarity in the state, surpassing even that of the Waverly
lynching the previous year. Jaffé asked Governor Byrd to recognize
that such savagery constituted a “matter of direct State concern.”
Byrd ignored Jaffé’s recommendation, but did pressure local
authorities to bring charges against known mob members. Despite
clear evidence pointing to the guilt of participants, a local jury
refused to convict the one individual against whom charges were
filed.
Final Passage
Byrd evinced no particular proclivity to endorse a state
antilynching law in the wake of Raymond Bird's death. But when a
lynch mob struck in Virginia for the third year in a row, Jaffé
pushed the hesitant governor to act. In the early morning hours of
November 30, 1927, a Wise County mob, estimated at three
hundred to four hundred people, lynched Leonard Woods on a
platform that straddled the Virginia-Kentucky border. For days
and weeks, authorities in both states quibbled over whether to
charge the lynching to Kentucky or Virginia. Virginia's governor
condemned the act, but appeared satisfied that "Virginia has no
legal jurisdiction."
In a private letter to Byrd, Jaffé pleaded with him to “find the
means of forcing a showdown on this outrage." Byrd replied that
he would like to discuss the matter with Jaffé, but expressed
reservations about such a law's compatibility with the state
constitution. Sensing reluctance on the part of the governor, Jaffé
used his editorial page to condemn the inaction of local
authorities and to urge publicly that Byrd take action. Jaffé
argued that "lynching goes unpunished in Virginia because, deny it
as one will, it commands a certain social sanction." Jaffé
explained that the eradication of mob violence mandated laws
that punished not only the principal participants, but also all
persons who “advise, encourage or promote" lynching. The Norfolk
editor urged the commonwealth to strip mob members of the
right to vote and hold office, and argued for strict fines and
punishments in addition to those for murder. "In short," concluded
Jaffé, “lynching must be recognized as a State cancer, requiring
direct State action. It must be rid of its social cachet and stamped
with the State's curse."
As Jaffé and others had predicted, local authorities in Wise County
made no serious efforts to punish those responsible for the murder
of Leonard Woods. But by December 1927, such inactivity no
longer met the approval of all local leaders or the silence of the
rest of the state. Throughout December and early January, Jaffé
continuously pushed his call for an antilynching law. Finally, on
January 16, 1928, Byrd asked the Virginia General Assembly to
declare lynching "a specific State offense" that would allow the
state attorney general to prosecute lynchings in addition to local
authorities; to force counties or cities in which a lynching
occurred to pay $2,500 to the lawful heirs of the person lynched;
and to authorize the governor to spend whatever money
considered necessary and appropriate to bring to justice members
of a mob. Carefully guarding himself against charges of violating
local authority, Byrd added that "it should be made clear that
declaring lynching as a specific State offense does not take away
the constitutional rights of accused citizens for trial in localities
where the crime was committed.” The governor's caveat limited
the likelihood that white Virginians would be convicted of
lynching; friends and neighbors rarely recognized guilt in such
cases.
On February 3, state senators James Barron of Norfolk and Cecil
Connor of Leesburg introduced an antilynching measure. Two
weeks later, the state senate passed the bill by a vote of 32 to0
with eight abstentions. Although grateful that the Senate had
taken a step toward “outlawing this crowning infamy of the
century,” the Richmond Planet, a black newspaper, lamented that
the legislature had “extracted the teeth" from Byrd's original
proposal by removing the monetary penalty provision. On March 1,
the House of Delegates concurred with the Senate's version by a
margin of 74 to 5; a noticeable twenty-one delegates abstained.
On March 14, 1928, Byrd signed into law the nation’s strictest
antilynching measure and the first that directly termed lynching a
state crime. No white person was ever convicted under the statute
for committing crimes against an African American. Instead,
Virginia’s landmark antilynching law was used only to punish
whites for crimes against other whites.
Several months after the passage of Virginia's antilynching law, a
mob in Houston, Texas, lynched a black man just before that city
was to host the 1928 Democratic National Convention. The
following day, Jaffé authored an editorial entitled “An
Unspeakable Act of Savagery," in which he concluded that "we
have not yet arrived at that social abhorrence of this crime that
must precede its practical extinction. ... The rise and fall of the
lynching curve is governed by racial passions that remain still to
be brought under civilized control." That editorial won Jaffé a
Pulitzer Prize.
Time Line
Between 1880 and 1930 - Mobs in Virginia, while less active than elsewhere in the South, lynch
approximately seventy African Americans.
October 13, 1923 - A white mob lynches Horace Carter in King and Queen County. Louis Jaffé
denounces the mob's actions in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, the strongest terms yet to appear in a white
newspaper in the state.
March 1925 - A lynching occurs in Waverly; the failure of local officials to respond prompts Louis Jaffé
to embrace the power of state government as an effective weapon in ending mob law.
August 15, 1926 - A mob of fifty masked individuals forcibly removes S$. Raymond Bird, a black man
who has been charged with an offense against two white women, from the Wythe County jail and
lynches him. The act leads Louis Isaac Jaffé to first raise the possibility of passing legislation to make
lynching a state crime in Virginia.
November 30, 1927 - A Wise County mob, estimated at 300 to 400 people, lynches Leonard Woods on
a platform straddling the Virginia-Kentucky border, after which Louis Jaffé publicly condemns the
inaction of the state. Though Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr. condemns the act, he states that "Virginia has
no legal jurisdiction” in the case.
January 16, 1928 - Succumbing to pressure from public sentiment and Louis Isaac Jaffé’s scathing
editorials, Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr. asks the General Assembly to declare lynching "a specific State
offense."
February 3, 1928 - State senators James Barron of Norfolk and Cecil Connor of Leesburg introduce an
antilynching measure to the state senate. The bill passes by a vote of 32 to 0 with eight abstentions.
March 1, 1928 - Virginia's House of Delegates affirms the Senate's version of the antilynching law bya
margin of 74 to 5; a noticeable twenty-one delegates abstain.
March 14, 1928 - Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr. signs into law the nation’s strictest antilynching measure
and the first that directly terms lynching a state crime.
Categories Twentieth Century History (1901-2000) Crime and Criminals Law
and Court Cases African American History Jim Crow Era State Government
References
Further Reading
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. Lynching in the New South: Georgia and
Virginia, 1880-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of
Black America. New York: Random House, 2002.
Hale, Grace. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the
South, 1890-1940. New York: Random House, 1998.
Smith, J. Douglas. Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and
Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2002.
External Links
Anti-Lynching Law in U.S. History: All Things Considered, June 13.
2005
Cite This Entry
APA Citation:
Smith, D. Anti-Lynching Law of 1928. (2012, June 12). In Encyclopedia
Virginia. Retrieved from
http://www. EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Antilynching_Law_of_1928.
MLA Citation:
Smith, Douglas. “Anti-Lynching Law of 1928." Encyclopedia Virginia.
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 12 Jun. 2012. Web. 22 Jan.
2016.
First published: November 6, 2008 | Last modified: June 12, 2012
Contributed by Douglas Smith, an adjunct assistant professor of
history and American studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles,
California. This entry is excerpted from chapter six of his book,
Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim
Crow Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 145 Ednam Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22903-4629 Phone 434.924.3296
Fax 434.296.4714
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