No double murder has altered the nation’s cultural landscape quite like this one. The killings of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank stirred latent antisemitism, racism, sectionalism and bigotry that festered below the Mason-Dixon Line before exploding nationwide, leaving shockwaves still felt today.
On April 27, 1913, 13-year-old Phagan, a gentile white girl, was found strangled at the National Pencil Factory in Atlanta. A black factory worker, Jim Conley, testified that a Northern Jewish supervisor, Leo Frank, had killed Phagan while trying to rape her. Conley’s clever testimony and its implications incensed genteel Southerners, and the all-white jury sentenced Frank to death in a racially unprecedented decision. Two years later, when an outgoing governor commuted Frank’s sentence, livid Georgians abducted the alleged murderer from prison and drove more than 100 miles to lynch him near Phagan’s childhood home.
“The Frank case is a ground zero for schisms still alive in American culture,” said Steve Oney, senior editor at Los Angeles magazine and an expert on Frank. Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Ku Klux Klan were born from the Frank incident, of which the media intensity and scope of effect were like an early-century O.J. Simpson trial.
Early sensational coverage of Phagan’s murder in three of Atlanta’s papers — Georgian, Journal and Constitution — morphed into unabashed bias against Frank. This galvanized Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New York Times, to use his paper to crusade for Frank’s cause. With the Civil War a fresh wound, the New South resented this influence. Surfing a wave of anti-North sentiment, Thomas Watson, a future American senator, instigated the lynching. In his papers ,Jeffersonian and Watson’s Monthly, he condemned Och’s meddling and touted Frank’s guilt, which was eventually confirmed after 13 appeals.
For documentarian and public television producer, Ben Loeterman, who produced content for the Discovery Channel, PBS and the BBC, recent racially motivated hate crimes, like a group of black boys beating a white boy in Jena, La., or the gang murder of an Ecuadorian in Patchogue, N.Y., made Frank an ongoing concern: “There is nothing unique about the social forces in the Frank case that couldn’t happen again in an instant,” he said.
Loeterman envisioned a documentary that communicated Frank’s visceral otherness to a modern audience. The resulting film, “The People v. Leo Frank,” premiered last month in Atlanta, just miles from where Frank was lynched.
Oney had been the first to hold a magnifying glass to the particulars of the case, but it was no easy feat.
“The Frank case was present by its absence in Georgia,” Oney said. “Everyone knew about it, but nobody spoke of it. You’d go into an old country store, and in back would be a picture of Frank’s body after he was lynched.”
Oney spent 17 years researching the events surrounding the case and interviewing what he calls the “linking generation” of aging Georgians who knew the main players. He said the children of those who lynched Frank were easier to talk to than Atlanta Jews.
“What it did to Southern Jews can’t be discounted,” Oney said. “It drove them into a state of denial about their Judaism. They became even more assimilated, anti-Israel, Episcopalian. The Temple did away with chupahs at weddings — anything that would draw attention.”
Oney discovered that the murderous mob imagined by so many was actually a conspiracy of aristocratic Atlantans well connected in city government. For Loeterman, this sets apart the Frank case from other lynchings: It was “state-sponsored murder.”
Loeterman read Oney’s 1985 Esquire magazine article on the subject, and realized that antisemitism was merely one facet of a complex, layered tale. Loeterman tucked away the article that predated Oney’s seminal “And the Dead Shall Rise” (2003) — a book that became the instant Frank bible. By that time, Loeterman’s résumé was full of films on the criminal justice system, yet Frank still haunted him, so he decided to call Oney.
For Oney, it wasn’t film at first sight, but Loeterman persisted. After a lengthy courtship, Oney agreed to advise the making of “The People v. Leo Frank,” the first documentary film on the subject. After an early National Endowment for the Humanities grant got the project rolling, Loeterman lobbied for Atlanta’s support.
“Virtually no one outside of Atlanta has heard of the Leo Frank case. Part of my strategy was to bring Atlanta to understand that it’s their history to share,” Loeterman said.
Atlanta understood, giving more than half a million dollars toward production. Some supporters had direct family ties to the events, like former governor Roy Barnes, whose family member helped lynch Frank. Linda Selig, a consultant who helped raise funds, learned that a great-great-aunt on her husband’s side was Frank’s wife.
“She never remarried, and she signed her name Mrs. Leo M. Frank until she died, which was very courageous,” Selig said.
Loeterman, cast and crew descended upon Georgia in 2008 to film re-enactments of crucial moments in the Frank chronology — courtroom scenes, the lynching itself — on the very ground where they occurred.
“If we couldn’t find it in a transcript, a letter, a diary, an account, a report, then we couldn’t use it,” Loeterman said. “It isn’t based on true events, it is true events.”
The consensus among historians today is that Frank was innocent. Conley’s lawyer wrote so on his deathbed, and Oney insists that the transcripts from the commutation hearing leave little room for doubt. It wasn’t until the 1980s, when 85-year-old Alonzo Mann confessed that he witnessed Conley carrying Phagan’s limp body years earlier, that the ADL requested a posthumous pardon to absolve Frank, which was denied. The organization applied for a second pardon on the basis that the state of Georgia failed to protect Frank during his time in its custody, and in 1986 the pardon was granted.
Rich with inherent drama and polarizing social issues, Leo Frank lore is hardly new to adaptation. Matthew H. Bernstein, chair of the film studies department at Emory University, examines the four major fictional treatments of the Frank history in his new book, “Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television” (University of Georgia Press). Two 1930s films, the allegorical “Murder in Harlem” and the revisionist “They Won’t Forget,” were based on the Frank case. A 1964 NBC television series, “Profiles in Courage,” featured Governor John Slaton, who commuted Frank’s sentence, risking his life and shattering his political career. A five-hour 1988 TV movie, “The Murder of Mary Phagan,” starring Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey, is arguably the fullest fictional treatment. These later tellings were more comfortable discussing antisemitism, and garnered larger audiences.
Both ’30s films were banned from being shown in Atlanta upon their release, though neither addressed antisemitism. But more than 2,400 people attended the April 30 world premiere of “The People v. Leo Frank” at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta.
“It is a visible sign that Cobb County is not living in dark days anymore,” said the ADL’s Southeast regional director, Bill Nigut, who helped bring the premiere to town.
“It’s therapeutic when something this horrible has happened to try to revisit it, re-dramatize it, reinterpret it — in hopes that it will make more sense,” Bernstein said.
The documentary premieres November 2 on PBS.
Allison Gaudet Yarrow is at work on a memoir about growing up Jewish in the Deep South.
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It appears that the jewish community only cares about the jewish victim in this story.The child was a white christian so i guess she doesn't count in jewish eyes.And no i'm atheist not christian so stuff the cry of antisemite.
I'm a native Atlantan, and had never even heard of this case until law school. I read "And The Dead Shall Rise," which is not only a meticulous and riveting account of the case, but also provides a fascinating slice of Atlanta history.
I hope to see this documentary when (if) it airs.
And as for Richard's comment, clearly you miss the entire point of this tragic event. And I am in fact a Southern, white, Christian male.
Those who were at the premiere or paid closer attention to recent events -- especially those in Atlanta -- understand that ADL is out to protect all people from hatred or predjudice, including atheists.
This attitude underscores the truth behind Mr. Loeterman's comment that, "there is nothing unique about the social forces in the Frank case that couldn’t happen again in an instant.” Sadly, ignorant biases still exist. One only has to pay attention to the news.
The 2,400 people at the premiere included included 100 law enforcement officials, political leaders,teachers, students and people from all walks of life. Along with relatives of Mary Phagan and those involved in the lynching.
Those who were at the premiere or paid closer attention to recent events -- especially those in Atlanta -- understand that ADL is out to protect all people from hatred or predjudice, including atheists.
This attitude underscores the truth behind Mr. Loeterman's comment that, "there is nothing unique about the social forces in the Frank case that couldn’t happen again in an instant.” Sadly, ignorant biases still exist. One only has to pay attention to the news.
The 2,400 people at the premiere included included 100 law enforcement officials, political leaders,teachers, students and people from all walks of life. Along with relatives of Mary Phagan and those involved in the lynching.
What kind of people could stand behind a pedophile murderer? He was tried and convicted and his vast resources almost let him get away with the crime. A sad shame and dishonable endeavor of those that seek to malign the victim and exalt the predator.
I visited the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum last year and its exhibit "Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited," and I have intensively studied the Leo Frank case since I first learned about it 37 years ago as in my American history class at Miami-Dade College in Florida. It profoundly disturbs me that there are those who still believe to this day that Leo Frank was guilty of killing little Mary Phagan and that he got what he deserved when he was wrongly convicted and wantonly lynched. They are like the Big Tobacco executives who had the unmitigated gall to disseminate for decades two Big Lies: 1) Smoking cigarettes does not cause lung cancer and other deadly diseases, and 2) Nicotine is "not addictive." These lies have cost over 400,000 smokers their lives every year to this very day.
Leo Frank's innocence is irrefutable historic fact, as Steve Oney and many others before him who have so thoroughly documented this fact. I also have praise for the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles who pardoned Leo Frank in 1986; although they did not address the question of guilt or innocence, they rightly ruled that the state's failure to protect Frank from the lynch mob trumps the question of his guilt or innocence.
I look forward to watching THE PEOPLE V. LEO FRANK when it is shown on PBS or on DVD.
Leo Frank was innocent. Part of the reason he was convicted was prejudice -- against blacks. It was his word against that of Conley, a black man. While the evidence pointed against Conley, people felt that Conley's story had to be true because they felt blacks weren't smart enough to concoct complicated lies. If they had a respect for black intelligence, Conley would have been convicted in a heartbeat. Ironically, Conley owed his life to prejudice against his race.
The Frank trial led to the emergence of both the KKK and the ADL. Thankfully, the KKK's evil power has long been shattered. As for the ADL, it's morphed into a hard-left organization that cares more about advancing political correctness at the expense of traditional values than about defending the Jews against prejudice. In so doing, it risks the very thing it was formed to combat -- a rise in anti-Semitic bigotry. Most people are sophisticated enough not to fall into the trap -- but no thanks to ADL, a once-great organization.
This case is not yet fully solved although it seems that way to many. Modern books still have many errors which need to be corrected. A useful website for original documentation can be found at: www.leofrankcase.com
The tough question to answer is exactly why was Mary killed.
Allen
The full URL for the new Leo Frank documentation is at: http://www.leofrankcase.com
Be sure to catch the PBS special on November 2, 2009, although strictly speaking, it is not a documentary.
Allen
I grew up in Marietta. Regrettably, there were members of my family that somehow had pride in associating where we lived with the event. After studying this for many years, I’ve seen just how the wrong message can be so effectively passed on from one generation to the next. To think that this happened so many generations ago; yet, as a child growing up in the 70’s, I often heard about it as if it happened last week. People were convinced that Mr. Frank was guilty. And, it made it allot easier for them to accept vigilantes because he was a Jew. I left Marietta and lived around the world for the next 25 years. I’ve come to see the story through a different set of eyes. “The Dead Shall Rise” convinced me of what really happened. The wrong man was convicted of this crime. Leo Frank is innocent. I only hope I can meet him when I get to heaven. When I do, I will offer a sincere apology on behalf of all the citizens that were led astray by leaders, elected and otherwise. I just wish surviving family members of the lynch mob would issue some type of acknowledgement of the facts as we understand them today. There’s allot more factual information available now that, at the very least, brings reasonable doubt as to Mr. Frank’s guilt. I realize they weren’t around when their ancestors did this; but, to remain silent is to endorse and condone what took place.