Black List

The all-time high record for lynchings in the U. S. was set in 1892 with 100 white victims, 155 black. Last year ten persons, seven of them Negroes, were mobbed to death, an all-time low record. So showed the figures of Dr. Robert Russa Moton,* Negro principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which annually compiles lynching's Black List.

The descending graph of lynchings indicates their disappearance in 20 years. Lynchings for 1929 were one less than for 1928, six less than for 1927, nine less than for 1926. Score by States: Florida, 4; Texas, 3; Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, 1 each. For the last 40-year lynching period, Georgia leads with 434 Negroes killed by mobs. Mississippi is next with 409, Louisiana third with 287.

Of the ten lynchings in 1929, six victims were taken from the hands of the Law. Offenses charged: rape, 3; writing insulting notes, 2; murder, 1; wounding a white man in a brawl, 1; wounding a law officer, 2; unreported, 1.

Pleased was Dr. Moton to state: "There were 27 instances in which officers of the law prevented lynchings ... 24 of them in Southern States. . . In three instances armed force was used to repel would-be lynchers. . . . Twenty Negro men and two Negro women were thus saved from death at the hands of mobs."

*To Dr. Moton, for his work in race relations, went last week a gold medal and $1,000, the highest of sixteen Harmon awards for distinguished achievement among Negroes.

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