Lynching Cases - Mississippi - Roosevelt Townes and Bootjack McDaniels (Winona), 1937

Biographical / Historical

Full newspaper pages from Baltimore newspapers regarding the cases of Euel Lee, Matthew Williams, and George Armwood between 1931 and 1934.

Scope and Contents

See also "Lynching Legislation - 75th Congress - H.R. 1507 - Letters"

Dates

Creation: 1937

Document Types

Photographs, Clippings, Draft article

May Contain Harmful Content

Harmful Content (general) Photographs of victims.

Additional Description

Arrangement

Arrangement is geographical; when multiple items referring to a single individual exist, a separate folder has been created with their name and the location in the folder title.

Processing Information

Lynching files have been processed using detailed processing procedures. All the information in the finding aid has been verified against folder content, dates and document types have been added, and more detailed arrangement and description work has been performed.

In files on lynching cases, names of victims are listed in the scope and content note for that folder, along with the locality and year of the incident. Unnamed victims are listed with location and date, and victims of attempted lynchings are also listed when named. When many documents are found for a specific victim, they are arranged in a separate folder with the victim's name in the folder title. Content warnings have been added to folder records where photographs of lynching victims are filed, or clippings with particularly graphic headlines, and such items are encapsulated within the main folders to allow researchers to choose whether or not to engage with this content.

The lynching legislation files appear to have been originally compiled around 1941, when correspondence is found between an AFRO librarian and a Congressional Research Service librarian. A 1939 report created by the Congressional Research Service is found, which may serve as an index to the content of these files.