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| Marker Dedication (click to enlarge) |
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| Leo Frank Lynching
After nearly 93 years, a Georgia State Historical Society marker was dedicated near the site of the infamous Leo Frank lynching in Marietta, Ga., Aug. 17, 1915. The tragedy, one of the darker moments of Georgia State and American Jewish history, cannot be overlooked or diminished. Philosopher Georgia Santayana noted, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Hatred, bigotry, mob irrationality, judicial and societal moral failure characterized the story. The Leo Frank marker project - a two-year effort spearheaded by JASHP, was dedicated March 7, 2008.
The Marker text reads:
Near this location on August 17, 1915, Leo M. Frank, the Jewish superintendent of the National Pencil Company, in Atlanta, was lynched for the murder of thirteen year old Mary Phagan, a factory employee. A highly controversial trial fueled by societal tensions and anti-Semitism resulted in a guilty verdict in 1913. After Governor John M. Slaton commuted his sentence from death to life in prison, Frank was kidnapped from the state prison at Milledgeville and taken to Phagan's hometown of Marietta where he was hanged before a local crowd. Without addressing guilt or innocence and recognition of the state's failure to protect Frank or bring his killers to justice he was granted a posthumous pardon in 1986.
Erected by the Georgia Historical Society, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and Temple Kol Emeth
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