Lynching of Women in United States Blog Series: The Lynching of Belle Hathaway

This blog was written by Dr. Trichita M. Chestnut, Management and Program Analyst in the Office of the Chief Operating Officer at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland

This is the second blog post on a series of blogs on the lynching of women in the United States.

Lynching remains one of the most disturbing and least understood atrocities in American history. During the Postbellum and Reconstruction periods, mob violence in the South became a tool for maintaining the racial order. African American men, women, and children now comprised the majority of victims of lynch mobs and lynchings assumed an increasingly sadistic nature.

Between 1837 and 1946, 173 women were victims of white mob violence in the United States. Of the 173 women lynched: 144 were African American, 25 were white, 3 were Mexican, and 1 was Native American. 164 of these women met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs in the South. Women, who moved outside the well-defined boundaries of the rigid moral and social order of the Post-Reconstruction period, were challenging the cult of true womanhood and the domination of white males and sex-role mandates. In extreme situations, women who would not conform were lynched.

There are case files on the lynching of women in Georgia, found in Record Group (RG) 60 the General Records of the Department of Justice and RG 65 Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the these records, you will find correspondence, newspaper clippings, telegrams, petitions, and resolutions from ordinary Americans as well as notable anti-lynching and civil rights activists and organizations relating to the lynching of African Americans in the United States.

In Georgia, the state with the second largest number of females lynched, had 18 female victims of lynch mobs from 1884-1946: 17 were African American and 1 was white. The series Straight Numerical Files, 1904-1974 (National Archives Identifier 583895) contains correspondence regarding the lynching of women in the United States.

“Dear President, imagine a poor helpless woman being marched thru the streets to a post and amidst her piteous cries and protesting her innocence, she is strung up and lynched like a brute…” E.D. Rosemond of Ashville, North Carolina wrote to President William Taft on January 24, 1912, describing the lynching the 6th female victim in the state of Georgia, Belle Hathaway.

 

Letter to President William Howard Taft from E. D. Rosemond (NAID 583895), page 1
Letter to President William Howard Taft from E. D. Rosemond (NAID 583895), page 1

 

Letter to President William Howard Taft from E. D. Rosemond (NAID 583895), page 2
Letter to President William Howard Taft from E. D. Rosemond (NAID 583895), page 2

On January 22, 1912, an unknown assailant shot and killed Norman Hadley, a young white married farmer, while sitting in his home. That afternoon authorities arrested four African-American tenants, including Belle and three men, and charged them with the crime of murder in Hamilton, Harris County. Although Sheriff Hadley, the victim’s uncle feared no lynching would occur, a white mob had been mobilizing and planning that entire day and night. By 9 o’clock that evening, a mob of 100 white men overpowered the jailer and took the four prisoners, who were marched out-of-town at gunpoint. “There they were quickly strung up. Immediately their writhing bodies became silhouetted against the sky, revolvers and rifles blazed forth and fully 300 shots were fired before the mob dispersed. The Negroes protested their innocence to the last, but the mob would have none of it.”

Newspaper clipping about the incident (NAID 583895) [Subject to copyright restrictions]
Newspaper clipping about the incident (NAID 583895) [Subject to copyright restrictions]
All four victims died, “at the hands of persons unknown,” since no one had ever been prosecuted for this lynching.

 

3 thoughts on “Lynching of Women in United States Blog Series: The Lynching of Belle Hathaway

  1. I was born in Fort Worth,Texas in 1952 and I went to segregated schools except for one year I lived in Des Moines,Iowa. I still some of the same prejudice today that was back then. I am so bewildered by the lack of interest in our young people in terms of their own history. I feel as though this is one of the factors in why we don’t see ourselves as a group. I think for us, there are too many solo acts. Why don’t we have any national presence of banks,television,clothing and media outlets. It seems that some people who are in position to make changes don’t want to be seen as Black.

    1. That lack of interest was no accident. It is a byproduct of integration. Being taught history through the eyes of people who do not value our history does nothing to inspire love of self. Black history month has become “American” Black History month. Dr. Carter G. Woodson called Black history the missing pages of world history.

      Instead our history is taught beginning with slavery. Who wants to be involved in something such as that?

      Cause and effect.

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