Matt Lebovic, This article you have written, ‘The ADL and KKK, born of the same murder, 100 years ago” for the Times of Israel dot com, perpetuates the 100 year old BIG LIE about the Leo Frank trial, what amounts to an anti-Gentile blood libel and hate crime hoax, that people were shouting death chants “hang the Jew” in the courtroom during the Leo Frank trial and intimidating the jury. The unabridged archive of Leo Frank’s appeals records at the Georgia Supreme Court (1913 and 1914) are now published online at the Internet Archive (see Archive Org) as of April 26, 2013 (the centennial of Phagan’s murder), as well as the three local Atlanta daily newspapers (Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Georgian and Atlanta Journal, April 28 to August 26, 1913) that meticulously covered the trial day-by-day from July 28, 1913 to August 26, 1913, are also now available online to be read. None of these sources reported people shouting “hang the Jew” at Leo Frank’s trial. Nothing in Leo Frank’s appeals mention any people shouting anti-Semitic hate speech during the trial. Neither the prosecution, the judge, jury, or defense ever mentioned such disruptions being made in the media or during appeals – the official record was published online on April 26, 2013 – the centennial of Phagan’s murder.
Please stop spreading blood libel and defamatory lies about the Leo Frank Case, no one ever shouted, “hang the Jew” inside the courtroom, or outside the courtroom into the open windows of the trial. This is a racist anti-Gentile hate speech fraud perpetuated by the ADL, Abraham Foxman, Leonard Dinnerstein and other prominent Jews. I encourage anyone with any doubts to review the 1,800 pages of Leo Frank’s appeals to the presiding judge Leonard Strickland Roan, and the Georgia Supreme Court on the Internet Archive (see Archive Org).
The other misrepresentation in your article is that Leo Frank was exonerated of raping and strangling Mary Phagan, this is completely false. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, DID NOT exonerate Leo Frank, they only pardoned him (forgave him of his guilt), but they specifically stated they were not exonerating him of the murder. You can thank the American spy and espionage Anti-Semitism Lobby – The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL) – lead by its current Zionist Czar, Abraham Foxman, for creating the most powerful Civil Rights group in the world that turns a blind eye to the Open Apartheid in the Rogue Pariah Terrorist State of Israel. The ADL was founded in the blood of little Mary Ann Phagan, how’s that for Blood Libel reality check? Thank you ADL for perpetuating on your web site the racist anti-Gentile that people were shouting, “Hang the Jew” – anti-Semitic death threats – into the open windows of the courtroom. Thank you for perpetuating this racist anti-Semitism canard for 100 years.
“The Leo Frank lynching, August 17, 1915 (photo credit: public domain)” – this photograph came from an estate of a long time collector of photographs and is extremely rare, perhaps the only one in existence, sold on ebay for a few hundred dollars. The image of the trial was recently released online by the AJC, April 1913, and was originally created in the afternoon of Monday, July 28, 1913, Newt Lee is being examined by Dorsey.
Dear reader please politely contact Matt Lebovic and ask him to stop perpetuating known blood libel, hate speech fraud and hate crime hoaxes about the Leo Frank Case. Also politely ask him to publicly apologize on his newspaper’s blog, ‘Times of Israel’, that it is indeed a racist lie about the so-called “hang the Jew” anti-Semitic death threat chanting courtroom incident and dispel this hatefilled, prejudiced, and racist Jewish mythology once and for all.
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-adl-and-kkk-born-of-the-same-murder-100-years-ago/
May 27th, 2013
The ADL and KKK, born of the same murder, 100 years ago. How a scandalous Memorial Day strangling led Jews and anti-Semites to rethink survival strategies and form two stalwart organizations
By Matt Lebovic
BOSTON — Few Americans know that Memorial Day evolved from the vanquished southern states’ own “Confederate Memorial Day,” launched in 1866. Even fewer Americans remember what happened in Atlanta on Confederate Memorial Day in 1913, when a young woman’s murder led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League and reinvigorated its nemesis, the Ku Klux Klan.
Thirteen-year old Mary Phagan was beaten and strangled in the basement of her former place of employment, an Atlanta pencil factory, on April 26, 1913. The factory was managed by 29-year-old Leo Frank, a Jew raised in Brooklyn and educated at Cornell University. After becoming investigators’ top suspect in two days, Frank submitted to a murder trial brimming with anti-Semitic vitriol, hearsay testimony and conflicting statements.
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In an American version of the Dreyfuss Affair, shouts of “hang the Jew!” echoed through the courthouse during the trial. The jury pronounced Frank guilty and he was sentenced to death on August 25, 1913. After a national outcry, Georgia governor John Slaton determined Frank had not received a fair trial, and his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
The commutation set off another outcry, with Slaton hung in effigy and the boycott of Jewish businesses in Atlanta. Particularly outraged were some of Georgia’s top political and civic leaders, one of whom coined the phrase, “Lynch law is better than no law at all.” Some of these men were more public than others about their bigotry, but all were outraged by the governor’s decision and what they viewed as the threat posed by Georgia’s 3,000 Jews.
Determined to enact their own verdict on Leo Frank, the leaders convened technicians and strongmen to craft a plan. Calling itself “The Knights of Mary Phagan,” the well-to-do mob kidnapped Frank from the state prison in Milledgeville and drove him to a farm outside Marietta. After hanging their victim from an oak tree, mob participants snapped photographs and took pieces of Frank’s effects to sell as souvenirs. Several children, brought to witness the lynching, can be seen clutching parents’ hands in the photos.
The Leo Frank lynching, August 17, 1915 (photo credit: public domain)
The Leo Frank lynching, August 17, 1915 (photo credit: public domain)
Half of the state’s Jews fled Georgia following the lynching, and the hanging photographs were turned into postcards for sale at local stores. Anti-Semitic media outlets contributed to the fray, including the Columbia State newspaper, which claimed: “The heroic Marietta lynchers are too modest to give their photographs to the newspapers.”
Georgia’s government covered up the Frank lynching for the better part of a century, refusing to prosecute the perpetrators or posthumously pardon Frank until 1986, years after new evidence had exonerated him. Only in 2000 were members of the lynch mob publicly named – by a private citizen, of course.
Among the ring-leaders were a former Georgia governor, several mayors, and a slew of judges and sheriffs. Incredibly, some of their faces appear in the lynch mob photographs, belying the decades-old claim that no perpetrators could be identified.
It was not evident at the time, but this elite gathering of Georgia’s most prominent bigots to hang a Jew marked the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Early Klan cross burning. (photo credit: public domain)
Early Klan cross burning. (photo credit: public domain)
The Klan was started by Confederate war veterans after the Civil War to prevent freed slaves from obtaining rights. It has been called the first true terrorist group founded on American soil. Though the US government managed to dismantle the so-called First Klan, its mission remained alive in the minds of racist whites committed to overturning an unjust order.
The Leo Frank case inspired Klan-sympathizing racists to expand the parameters of hate by including Jews, who they viewed as dishonest and alien to white society. A cross-burning ceremony attended by some of Frank’s murderers in 1917 marked the official launch of the Second Klan. Future US Senator Tom Watson helped reignite Klan activities through incitement in southern newspapers.
However racists and anti-Semites weren’t the only ones to draw conclusions from the Leo Frank trial and refocus on organizational structures.
Immediately after Frank’s wrongful conviction in 1913, the B’nai B’rith Jewish service organization founded the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Frank had been the Atlanta chapter president of B’nai B’rith before his trial, so the ADL’s creation within this network was more than appropriate.
The original B’nai B’rith announcement of the formation of the ADL. (photo credit: public domain)
The original B’nai B’rith announcement of the formation of the ADL. (photo credit: public domain)
“The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people,” said the League’s 1913 charter. “Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”
Founded in Chicago, the ADL currently operates 27 regional US offices and one in Israel. Its mandate to prevent defamation of Jews has greatly expanded since 1913, highlighted by decades of work to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) in 2009. In recent years, the ADL ramped up efforts to protect Israel from numerous worldwide detractors.
Following Leo Frank’s lynching, the Ku Klux Klan also learned the value of coalitions and clarity of purpose, adopting modern business practices to grow membership.
Klan recruiters – called “Kleagles” – were allowed to keep half of initiation fees, while standardized costumes and rituals consolidated the system.
‘The Birth of a Nation’ film in 1915 helped launch the Klan and ‘invented’ Klan iconography (photo credit: public domain)
‘The Birth of a Nation’ film in 1915 helped launch the Klan and ‘invented’ Klan iconography (photo credit: public domain)
D.W. Griffith’s February 1915 film, “The Birth of a Nation,” rolled out First Klan iconography still familiar around the world, including burning crosses and those bulky white robes. Two decades before “Triumph of the Will” and Hitler’s fire-strewn rallies, the Klan nailed down the indoctrination genre much closer to home.
Preaching “One Hundred Percent Americanism,” at its peak the Klan claimed to include more than four-million men as supporters. Klan leader William J. Simmons developed new terminology for his brethren, including Kloran (ritual book), Klavern (local organization), and Klectoken (initiation fee).
This Second Klan ceased activity during World War II, only to reappear in the 1950s as the current Third Klan. More lethal than ever, the civil rights-era KKK murdered African American leaders and their white allies, in addition to bombing blacks’ homes and churches. The Klan continued to receive support from prominent leaders, including when Birmingham police commissioner Bull Connor allowed Klan members fifteen minutes to attack “Freedom Riders” in 1961.
Despite downsizing and the alleged victory of pluralism, the Ku Klux Klan is by no means a relic of the past.
Experts estimate there to be 5,000 active Klan members today, most of them in the American South and Midwest
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) continues to monitor at least 100 Klan chapters, including in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Recent years have seen the formation of Klan chapters in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany, proving the power of bigotry to break down national barriers. Experts estimate there to be 5,000 active Klan members today, most of them in the American South and Midwest.
Though modern Klan chapters remain decentralized to prevent infiltration, it’s clear the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 fueled membership across the board. Klan leaders have also formed recent alliances with Neo-Nazi groups to fight against illegal immigration and same-sex civil marriage. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has provided – to some observers’ frustration – ongoing support for Klan members’ rights to hold rallies and run for public office.
This is the cover of the 1999 cast of the Broadway production of Jason Robert Brown’s ‘Parade.’ (photo credit: Michael Sultana, CC BY SA, via wikipedia)
This is the cover of the 1999 cast of the Broadway production of Jason Robert Brown’s ‘Parade.’ (photo credit: Michael Sultana, CC BY SA, via wikipedia)
The epic struggle between the ADL and the KKK’s conflicting worldviews has entered pop culture, including the 1999 musical “Parade,” based on the Leo Frank trial and its aftermath. A Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) special in 2009 signaled a broad approach through its title, “The People v. Leo Frank: Anti-Semitism in the USA.” And shedding light on Atlanta society circa 1913 and the justice system’s deadly breakdown was the 2003 book, “And the Dead Shall Rise,” by Steve Oney.
Leo Frank’s body was buried on August 20, 1915, in the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York. Before his mutilated remains were transferred north, a crowd of 15,000 Atlanta citizens – some carrying bricks – surrounded the undertaker’s parlor and demanded to see the body. The most prominent lynching of an American Jew had occurred, giving simultaneous impetus to both Jewish self-defense and the country’s most notorious group of hatemongers.
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-adl-and-kkk-born-of-the-same-murder-100-years-ago/
Also See: ADL and Leonard Dinnerstein
