1938: Lynchings

Lynchings during 1938 reached an all-time low of seven. The chief reason for this reduction was the persistent campaign for enactment of Federal legislation. The House of Representatives of the National Congress on April 15, 1937, passed the Gavagan Anti-Lynching Bill, H. R. 1507, by an overwhelming vote of 277 to 119. The bill was taken up in the United States Senate on Jan. 6, 1938, following an involved series of parliamentary maneuvers. Immediately a determined filibuster was begun to prevent a vote on the bill in the Senate. Even its most implacable enemies freely admitted that were a vote taken the bill would pass by an overwhelming majority, since 73 of the 96 Senators were pledged to vote for it. The filibuster continued for more than six weeks at a total cost estimated to be $460,000. Eventually the bill was laid aside, on February 21, 1938, to permit consideration of an emergency relief measure.

During the filibuster and continuing to the adjournment of Congress, there was a complete stoppage of lynching. It is generally agreed that this was due to fear that lynchings would cause the revival of the bill and perhaps its passage. There were a number of instances where mobs about to lynch a victim were told that they would insure passage of Federal anti-lynching legislation if they did not refrain. In every instance, including one of a white man, while Congress was in session, this appeal proved effective.

Additional factors in the cessation of lynching during this period were the outspoken editorials of leading Southern newspapers like the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, the Greensboro (N. C.) Daily News, the New Orleans (La.) Tribune, and other important papers; the active support of Federal legislation by such organizations as the Woman's Missionary Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the Y.W.C.A., and other powerful bodies, both Northern and Southern; and the increased interest because of the oppression of minorities in Germany and other nations.

But with the adjournment of Congress mobs were relieved temporarily from the fear that the Congress would act. During the last half of 1938 the seven lynchings referred to were staged by a total of more than 1,000 persons. Despite assurance by filibustering Senators that the states could and would prevent lynchings in future, none of the lynchers were arrested or punished. Sponsors of the anti-lynching bill in both houses of the Congress announced in December that because of this fact the anti-lynching bills would be reintroduced in the 76th Congress convening in January 1939, and that a vigorous campaign would be renewed for their enactment.