Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South

An analysis of the Leo Frank case as a measure of the complexities characterizing the relationship between African Americans and Jews in America

In 1915 Leo Frank, a northern Jew, was lynched in Georgia. He had been convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan, a young white woman who worked in the Atlanta pencil factory managed by Frank. In a tumultuous trial in 1913 Frank's main accuser was Jim Conley, an African American employee in the factory. Was Frank guilty?

In our time a martyr's aura fa...