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Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest

“U.S. Department of (White) Justice”

by Jason Morgan Ward

Date: 1935

Author: Walter F. White

Genre: Magazine article

Summary Overview

During the 1920s and 1930s, Walter White published dozens of essays to rally public opposition to lynching, including the 1935 article “U.S. Department of (White) Justice.” As the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), White called on the federal government to enact laws to prevent mob violence and punish its perpetrators. Published in The Crisis, the NAACP’s monthly journal, this particular essay focused on the reluctance of federal law enforcement officials to intervene in southern lynching cases.

The antilynching movement was one of the first civil rights causes to emerge on the national political scene. Walter White and the NAACP spearheaded a diverse alliance of churchwomen, labor unions, progressive activists, and southern liberals united in their opposition to lynching. Their crusade forced a showdown with southern politicians, who resisted any effort by the federal government to intervene in their affairs. While the national crusade against mob violence failed to enact federal antilynching laws, White’s efforts to publicize the horrors of lynching were a crucial step in the emergence of civil rights as a national issue.

Defining Moment

By the 1930s American lynch mobs had murdered nearly five thousand documented victims since the end of Reconstruction. Lynchings had occurred across the country during the late nineteenth century, claiming men and women of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Yet as mob violence peaked at the turn of the century, lynching became an increasingly regional and racial phenomenon. White supremacists condoned or explicitly endorsed vigilante violence as a means of discouraging black political participation and resisting any semblance of racial equality. By the early twentieth century, the vast majority of lynchings occurred in the South, and nearly all the victims were black. While lynching is often associated with hanging, vigilantes frequently shot, stabbed, burned, and tortured their victims as well.

As lynchings surged in the early 1930s (after a brief decline during the 1920s), the antilynching movement gained momentum. In 1918 Republican congressman Leonidas Dyer sponsored the first antilynching bill in American history. Four years later, the House of Representatives passed the Dyer bill despite the nearly unanimous opposition of its southern members. In the Senate however, southerners filibustered the bill into oblivion. After the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, there was hope for passage of antilynching legislation. FDR, however, was reluctant to endorse any legislation that would alienate southern Democrats. “If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now,” Roosevelt admitted, as recalled by White in A Man Called White, “they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk.”

Despite White’s and others’ mounting frustration with the federal government, the antilynching movement was gaining momentum by 1935, as the NAACP was working alongside civil rights groups, organized labor, and white southern women to rally public opposition to lynching. Gruesome exposés and scholarly studies of lynching fed public indignation. Contemporary polls revealed that even a significant percentage of white southerners favored legislation to stamp out lynching. But such promising shifts in public attitudes were meaningless without government action. By publishing articles like “U.S. Department of (White) Justice,” Walter White hoped to spotlight governmental apathy and pressure federal authorities to stamp out lynching once and for all.

Author Biography

Walter White was an influential journalist and civil rights activist who led the NAACP from 1929 until his death in 1955. Born on July 1, 1893, to a light-skinned Atlanta mail collector and his equally fair-complexioned wife, White enjoyed a relatively privileged upbringing among the city’s black middle class. But this did not shield White from the racial violence that swept Atlanta in 1906. During the three-day race riot, White watched as marauding whites assaulted hundreds of African Americans and destroyed black property.

White never forgot that mob. After graduating from Atlanta University in 1916, the young insurance salesman threw himself into a local campaign to increase funding for black schools. Later that year, White wrote directly to the national headquarters of the NAACP, asking for its help in organizing an Atlanta chapter. Impressed by the young leader’s energy and organizing skills, the NAACP executive secretary James Weldon Johnson invited White to join the national staff.

Less than two weeks after moving to New York to work at the national headquarters, White traveled south to investigate a lynching firsthand. Posing as a traveling salesman, White gathered gruesome details from local whites who had no idea they were speaking with a man of African ancestry. Over the next decade, White investigated dozens of lynchings and race riots at great personal risk. By the late 1920s he was one of the country’s foremost authorities on lynching. He recounted his investigations in northern newspapers and national magazines. White published both a novel and a nonfiction book based on his firsthand investigations of southern lynchings.

In 1929, White assumed leadership of the NAACP. During his long tenure as executive secretary, White enlisted powerful allies in NAACP campaigns against racial violence, discrimination, and segregation. The antilynching campaign was always close to White’s heart, and he spent much of the 1930s lobbying Congress and federal officials to take action against mob violence. White died on March 21, 1955, after leading the NAACP for nearly three decades.

Historical Document

The Department of Justice in Washington may lay claim to a 100 per cent performance in at least one branch of its activities—the evasion of cases involving burning questions of Negro rights. It sidestepped the issue of the exclusion of Negroes from southern elections on the ground that it was loaded with political dynamite. Other legalistic reasons were later added but the first orders to “Go Slow” were placed on purely political grounds. On the lynching issue the department has set a new record for its ability to dodge from one excuse to another.

On June 6, 1933, a white girl was murdered near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and shortly thereafter three Negro boys were thrown in jail on suspicion of the murder. On August 12, 1933, the sheriff of Tuscaloosa county unlawfully under color of authority took it upon himself to order their removal from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham “for safekeeping.” The sheriff’s deputies started at night for Birmingham in two automobiles: two deputies and the boys in the leading car, and a car full of deputies trailing behind. The sheriff ordered the convoy to take a back road because, as the deputies later testified, he did not want to risk the convoy being overtaken by a mob on the highway. When the convoy reached the Tuscaloosa county line, the trailing car turned back, leaving the first car with the boys in it to make the rest of the journey alone. Two miles across the county line the car with the boys in it was met, not overtaken, by other cars full of masked men. The boys were taken out, riddled with bullets, and two of them killed. The Southern Association for the Prevention of Lynching made an investigation which found the sheriff culpable.

A delegation made up of representatives from several national organizations on August 24 called at the Department of Justice pursuant to an appointment made with William Stanley, executive assistant to Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, who had promised to receive it in the absence of the attorney general, to request the department to investigate the lynching and prosecute the offending sheriff under Revised Statutes 5510 which makes it a federal offense to deprive an inhabitant of any state of any rights, privileges or immunities secured or protected by the federal Constitution under color of law or custom. But although Stanley had made the appointment himself, when the delegation arrived at the department, Stanley was not present, had sent no excuse for his absence, and investigation disclosed that he had not even entered the appointment on his calendar pad.

The delegation was so indignant that the officials of the department four hours later carried them in to see the attorney general himself. The attorney general was suave; he would make no commitment; he called for a brief. Accordingly a thorough brief was filed with the department October 13, 1933, and Stanley stated that he would let the delegation know the decision of the department by November 1. Actually he kept the delegation in suspense until March 5, 1934, although months before both he and the attorney general had told Roger N. Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union that the department did not intend to take any action in the case.

In the meanwhile a bill amending the original Lindbergh kidnaping law of 1932 had been introduced in Congress. The 1932 act had made kidnaping a federal offense where the kidnaped person was knowingly transported in interstate or foreign commerce and “held for ransom or reward.” The amendment to the 1932 act proposed to broaden the scope of federal jurisdiction and make kidnaping a federal offense when the person kidnaped was knowingly transported in interstate or foreign commerce and “held for ransom or reward or otherwise“ (italics ours). It also proposed that there should be a prima facie presumption that the person kidnaped had been carried across the state line unless released within three days.

While the bill was before the Senate judiciary committee the attorney general submitted a memorandum to the committee in support of the amendment as follows:

“This amendment adds thereto (to the Lindbergh Act of 1932) the word ‘otherwise’.…The object of the word ‘otherwise’ is to extend the jurisdiction of this act to persons who have been kidnaped and held, not only for reward but for any other reason.

“In addition this bill adds a proviso to the Lindbergh Act that in the absence of the return of the person kidnaped…during a period of three days the presumption arises that such person has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce, but such presumption is not conclusive.

“I believe that this is a sound amendment which will clear up border line cases, justifying federal investigation in most of such cases and assuring the validity of federal prosecution in numerous instances in which such prosecution would be questionable under the present form of this act” (italics ours).

In other words, at this stage the attorney general placed the Department of Justice squarely behind the amendment, giving to its provisions the broadest possible interpretation. But as soon as questions of lynching were raised, the attorney general abandoned his broad construction and began hopping from one position to another to avoid taking jurisdiction.

The bill passed Congress and became enacted into law June 22, 1934, with all the provisions of the amendment adopted except that the time within which a kidnaped person had to be held for presumption of an interstate transportation to arise was increased from three days to seven; and certain other changes not here material.

On October 4, 1934, one Curtis James’ house was broken into near Darien, Georgia, about fifty miles from the Florida line, and James, a Negro, shot and abducted by a mob. In spite of an intensive search he was not found. After waiting more than the seven days provided by the amended Lindbergh law, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on October 15 wrote the Department of Justice asking whether the abductors of James could not be prosecuted under the amended Lindbergh law. Under date of October 20 the department replied:

“…there is nothing to indicate that the person alleged to have been kidnaped was transported in interstate commerce and was held for ransom, reward or otherwise. In the absence of these facts establishing these elements it would seem that the matter would be one entirely for the authorities of the State of Georgia…”

It is interesting that in the James case the Department of Justice recognized that a lynching case might be covered under the words “or otherwise” of the amended Lindbergh act, but it dodged jurisdiction by repudiating the presumption. In short the department deliberately ignored the fact that not returning James within seven days created a presumption that there had been an interstate kidnaping, and thereby gave the federal government jurisdiction over the crime. It demanded that the N.A.A.C.P. substitute itself for the department’s own Bureau of Investigation and produce the facts establishing an interstate kidnaping.

Then on October 26, 1934, a Negro named Claude Neal was kidnaped from the jail in Brewton, Alabama, by a mob which came to the scene in automobiles bearing Florida licenses. Neal was transported across the Alabama line into Florida, held for fifteen hours and then murdered after unspeakable barbarities near Marianna, Florida. The N.A.A.C.P. felt that at last it had a perfect case for federal prosecution, but before it could even get a letter to the Department of Justice requesting an investigation, the department had issued a public statement that the words “or otherwise” in the amended Lindbergh law did not cover the case of lynching. Faced by the indisputable fact of an interstate kidnaping, the department was forced to the position that the amended Lindbergh law covered kidnaping for purposes of gain, but not for purposes of murder.

With loud fan-fare and carefully staged publicity, on November 7, 1934, the attorney general announced to the country a National Crime Conference called by him in Washington, December 10-13, 1934, “to give broad and practical consideration to the problem of crime” including causes and prevention of crime; investigation; detection and apprehension of crime and criminals. A comprehensive and distinguished list of delegates, including bar associations, was invited; but no Negro associations. On November 9 the N.A.A.C.P. wrote the attorney general asking whether lynching would be placed on the conference agendum. On November 16 the department replied:

“…the program for the conference has not as yet been completed, obviously it will be impossible to cover all the phases of the crime problem in the short space of three days. No definite decision has been made with reference to the subject of lynching. I wish to thank you, however, for bringing this matter to our attention.”

The crime of lynching was not even within the range of the department’s vision.

No word came from the department concerning its decision whether to place lynching on the conference agendum, so on November 22 the N.A.A.C.P. wired the attorney general inquiring whether the decision had been made, and what. The department replied November 27 that “it was not probable that the subject of lynching will be given place on program of Crime Conference.” Repeated efforts were made by local representatives of N.A.A.C.P. to see the Department of Justice in an attempt to obtain a reconsideration of the decision not to place lynching on the agendum, but the department remained unmoved.

Finally on the opening night of the conference when President Roosevelt made his key-note speech and roundly denounced lynching as one of the major crimes confronting this country, another wire was sent the attorney general asking in view of the President’s pronouncement whether he would not at that date place lynching on the agendum. No reply was received the following morning, so at 12:30 P. M. that day the District of Columbia branch of the N.A.A.C.P. began to picket the Crime Conference.

The pickets were arrested almost as soon as they appeared and charged with violation of the District of Columbia sign law and parading without a permit. But that afternoon at 2:25 P. M. the branch received a telegram from the attorney general stating that although there was no room for a discussion of lynching on the formal agendum of the conference, there was a discussion period after each session and that if a discussion period were free, he hoped that the subject of lynching would be taken up on the floor. He further invited a delegation consisting of representatives of the local colored bar association to membership in the conference.

In spite of this action by the attorney general however, the chairman of the conference announced that the discussion period would be limited to the papers read on the formal agendum at the particular session. Under the circumstances the District of Columbia branch of the N.A.A.C.P. decided to resume the picketing.

On the last day of the conference, December 13, just before the morning session adjourned, about sixty pickets suddenly appeared on the sidewalk in front of the convention hall, and silently took up pre-arranged stations about ten feet apart, stretching all the way from the entrance of the hall about three squares along the street the delegates had to use in leaving the conference. To avoid the sign law which prohibited signs twelve inches or over, the pickets carried signs across their breasts eleven inches wide. Ropes were looped around their necks to symbolize lynching. To avoid the charge of parading, each picket remained silent and stationary. The police were taken completely by surprise. To add to the confusion of the police the pickets were provided with a mimeographed sheet of instructions, one of which read that if anybody bothered them they were to call on the police for protection, as the police would not arrest them if they were not violating any law, since to do so would subject the police to an action for damages. The police fumed; an attorney for the Department of Justice hurriedly left to consult the law and find grounds for arresting the pickets, but never returned. That afternoon the conference, smoked out beyond the point of endurance, adopted a completely inane and harmless resolution condemning the use of illegal means in disposing of matters arousing racial antagonisms. The attorney general held both his peace and his hand.

Finally March 12, 1935, a Negro, Ab Young, was lynched near Slayden, Mississippi, allegedly for shooting a white man. Young had been seized in Tennessee, and taken across the line into Mississippi for the ceremonies. Memphis news reporters were on hand either by accident or previous notice.

The N.A.A.C.P. telegraphed both the attorney general and the President of the United States asking for investigation and prosecution under the amended Lindbergh law. To date it is still awaiting a reply. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict that Young had died at the hands of parties unknown.

The attorney general continues his offensive against crime—except crimes involving the deprivation of life and liberty and citizenship to Negroes.

Glossary

color: as a legal term, pretense, as in “under color of authority, law, or custom”

Lindbergh kidnapping law: a law passed in 1932 in response to the highly publicized kidnapping and murder of the son of the aviation hero Charles Lindbergh in New Jersey

prima facie: a legal term from the Latin for “at first sight,” referring to a fact presumed to be true unless rebutted by evidence

Document Analysis

White opens by stating that the Department of Justice has failed to protect African Americans from violence and discrimination. White contends that federal agencies are moving slowly on civil rights because the Roosevelt administration is unwilling to do anything that would offend its white southern supporters. To illustrate the gravity of the issue, in the second paragraph, White discusses the horrific details of several recent lynchings. By revealing the gruesome details, the motives behind the murders, and the generally callous attitude of local authorities toward the killings, White hoped to convince the American public and federal officials that outside intervention was necessary to eliminate lynching.

In paragraphs 3 and 4, White reveals that he and fellow activists have repeatedly lobbied the Department of Justice to investigate lynchings. White, however, could not persuade a Justice Department official to meet with his delegation. Undeterred, White and his colleagues refused to leave the building until officials escorted them to see the attorney general in person, but never received a commitment from the department about their demands. The fifth paragraph reveals activists’ methods using the legal system to their advantage. With no antilynching laws, the only way to justify federal prosecution of mob violence was to cite other laws that lynch mobs had violated. White had hoped that a revised version of a federal interstate kidnapping law would be broad enough to cover lynchings in which a mob carried a victim across state lines. In paragraphs 6–10, White reveals that the same attorney general who had refused to investigate the Tuscaloosa lynching had agreed in principle to broader laws against interstate kidnapping. But when civil rights activists cited this revised law to urge the Department of Justice to investigate lynchings, the attorney general once again refused to take action. White’s discussion of the Lindbergh kidnapping law reveals the importance of litigation in the NAACP’s civil rights activism. By using test cases, like the Curtis James lynching described in paragraph 12, the NAACP hoped to force the federal government to apply existing laws to civil rights violations.

In paragraphs 11–14, White describes how the Department of Justice evaded the NAACP’s claim that the James lynching violated the expanded language of the recently revised Lindbergh law and argues that Department of Justice officials are willfully misrepresenting existing laws and making excuses to justify their inaction. In paragraph 15, White mentions the lynching of Claude Neal. White saw in this incident an opportunity to rally public support for the antilynching campaign. But he also recognized that the Neal lynching was an ideal test case for the interstate kidnapping law. Authorities had apprehended the suspect in Florida and carried him to Alabama, but before the NAACP could even request a federal investigation, the Department of Justice announced publicly that the Lindbergh law did not apply to lynching cases.

In paragraphs 16–22, White describes the NAACP’s reaction to a highly publicized crime conference sponsored by the Department of Justice. Despite White’s intensive lobbying and the upsurge in lynchings during the early 1930s, the Department of Justice refused to include mob violence on the agenda.

Despite this setback, President Roosevelt spoke out forcefully against lynching. Faced with mounting pressure from antilynching activists, the president could not ignore lynching altogether. As Roosevelt rallied support for his New Deal programs, he walked a fine line between alienating his powerful southern allies and offending his growing number of African American supporters. His lynching statement at the crime conference was intended to reassure his black supporters without committing himself to any actions that would anger southern Democrats.

When the Department of Justice denied repeated requests to address the lynching problem, civil rights activists took to the streets. Local police responded by arresting the picketers outside the Justice Department, but the protest yielded tangible results. The attorney general invited African American representatives to participate in the conference and suggested that they could bring up lynching during an informal discussion session. When the conference coordinators backed off this promise, the local NAACP resumed its protest outside of the conference.

The willingness of the NAACP to stage peaceful protests reveals another dimension to the antilynching campaign. Decades before nonviolent protests hit the television screens, civil rights activists employed nonviolent measures to publicize their cause. In the antilynching protests outside the 1934 crime conference, activists carefully planned a public action that would dramatize the lynching problem. Because policemen had arrested early picketers under sign and parade laws, the second round of protestors planned a perfectly legal public action. Standing silently with lynching ropes looped around their necks and small signs pinned to their chests, the protestors forced the conference delegates to confront the reality of lynching even if they refused to discuss it. The spectacle finally forced the conference participants to adopt a vague resolution that did not name lynching specifically but conceded that racial violence was illegal and wrong.

In the closing three paragraphs, White makes clear that the moral victory at the crime conference did little to ease the bitterness and frustration of the antilynching movement. Less than three months after the conference, another lynching occurred that involved an interstate abduction. White concludes his article with the bitter admission that the Department of Justice remained reluctant to use its enforcement powers to protect African Americans from mob violence.

Essential Themes

White’s account of the NAACP’s efforts to persuade the federal government to adopt antilynching laws or, at the very least, prosecute perpetrators of lynchings for other crimes they committed in the process, such as kidnapping, is a valuable study in the politics of civil rights. The political implications that limited even sympathetic politicians’ desire to take concerted action are an oft overlooked factor during this period. As White describes it, President Roosevelt was not “pro lynching,” but, rather, did not view it as a significant enough problem to risk derailing the New Deal legislation he believed was necessary “to keep America from collapsing.” In addition to the President’s inaction, White’s piece demonstrates that he (and others) were clearly skeptical that the Department of Justice would suddenly reverse its stance on lynching. He firmly believed, however, that the campaign against mob violence depended on publicity and propaganda. Every piece of literature he produced was meant to turn up the heat on government officials by increasing the public outcry against lynching.

While this particular article appeared in an African American publication, White knew that it would also be quoted or reprinted in other newspapers and magazines. Earlier in his career, many white publications had refused to publish White’s articles on lynching. But by 1935 White had recruited influential white allies. Mainstream newspapers and magazines followed suit, publishing articles similar to this one. Walter White did more than any other activist to bring about this slow but significant transformation in public attitudes toward mob violence. No single person was more influential in making lynching a national political issue, and articles like “U.S. Department of (White) Justice” were a crucial part of White’s crusade.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

1 

Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. (New York: Random House, 2002).

2 

Dyja, Thomas. Walter White: The Dilemma of Black Identity in America. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2008).

3 

Pfeifer, Michael J. Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).

4 

Pfeifer, Michael J. (ed.), Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013).

5 

Sitkoff, Harvard. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue during the Depression Decade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

6 

White, Walter. A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White. (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1995).

Web Sites

7 

Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America Web site. http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

8 

“Jim Crow Stories: Walter White.” PBS “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” Web site. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_people_white.html

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Ward, Jason Morgan. "“U.S. Department Of (White) Justice”." Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest, edited by Aaron Gulyas, Salem Press, 2017. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=DDProtest_0063.
APA 7th
Ward, J. M. (2017). “U.S. Department of (White) Justice”. In A. Gulyas (Ed.), Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Ward, Jason Morgan. "“U.S. Department Of (White) Justice”." Edited by Aaron Gulyas. Defining Documents in American History: Dissent and Protest. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2017. Accessed May 30, 2026. online.salempress.com.