This dissertation deals with a series of events occurring in central Georgia in the late 1890s, which culminated in the lynching of Sam Hose. Hose, a black man accused of rape and murder, was burned at the stake at Newnan, about thirty miles southwest of Atlanta. Another black man, Lige Strickland, said to have been named by Hose as his accomplice, was hanged. Whites later claimed that Hose and Strickland had plotted to avenge the deaths of five black men lynched in an earlier arson case. These related events were the perhaps inevitable results of an atmosphere of distrust, hatred, and fear in a region that lacked a tradition of respect for the law. The spectacle at Newnan was widely and graphically publicized in the national press, and was discussed in the European press as well. The South was subjected to intense scrutiny from every quarter as politicians, church, and civic leaders debated the problem of racial violence in the region. The lynching and its aftermath spawned similar crimes in the region as blacks and whites reacted to the event and were further polarized by it. There is great interest in the role of violence in Southern history, but the story of Sam Hose's macabre and brutal death has not been fully researched before now. This study examines these events and their surrounding circumstances in an effort to determine their impact on racial conditions in the South, and on how the South was perceived elsewhere. It also looks at the extent to which the Hose lynching (and related incidents) typified and reflected the state of black/white relations in the late nineteenth century South. Furthermore, it examines the underlying conditions and motivations that resulted in the horror of lynching. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3650. / Major Professor: Valerie Jean Conner. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76743 |
| Creators | Ellis, Mary Louise |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 260 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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