If we ever reach the point of ending evil, most of the thanks will go to women. Why this is so can be sensed in the tenor of a letter Eliza E. Mell wrote in 1899 to the Atlanta Constitution:
Permit me, as a club woman, to express my utter horror and detestation of the awful crime committed by those parties who mutilated, tortured and burned alive Sam Hose. . . . I blush with shame for my native state. The negro should have been given the severest punishment of the law, but nothing short of the barbarity of a savage could justify such treatment as was given him. While reading the account my soul so burned within me to think that such deeds should be said to be necessary for the honor of southern women, that I write under the influence of strong emotion to urge the Georgia federation, which stands for what is best and noblest in the women of the grand ole state, to make a public protest, as solemn and strong as it can be made, against such terrible deeds. I believe that men will continue to commit these crimes in our name until we rise up in indignant protest. Woman’s influence can do more than law or religion to change public opinion and put an end to such brutal violence.
(Quoted from page 141 of Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching, by Crystal N. Feimster. Harvard University Press, 2009.)
For a brief account of Sam Hose, click here. We failed to find a biography of Eliza E. Mell, but have one of her husband, Patrick Hues Mell - click here. Crystal N. Feimster is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Permit me, as a club woman, to express my utter horror and detestation of the awful crime committed by those parties who mutilated, tortured and burned alive Sam Hose. . . . I blush with shame for my native state. The negro should have been given the severest punishment of the law, but nothing short of the barbarity of a savage could justify such treatment as was given him. While reading the account my soul so burned within me to think that such deeds should be said to be necessary for the honor of southern women, that I write under the influence of strong emotion to urge the Georgia federation, which stands for what is best and noblest in the women of the grand ole state, to make a public protest, as solemn and strong as it can be made, against such terrible deeds. I believe that men will continue to commit these crimes in our name until we rise up in indignant protest. Woman’s influence can do more than law or religion to change public opinion and put an end to such brutal violence.
(Quoted from page 141 of Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching, by Crystal N. Feimster. Harvard University Press, 2009.)
For a brief account of Sam Hose, click here. We failed to find a biography of Eliza E. Mell, but have one of her husband, Patrick Hues Mell - click here. Crystal N. Feimster is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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