After Thought: An Editorial on the Lynching of Ell Persons
The Memphis Press, May 23, 1917
as reprinted in Supplement to The Crisis, July 1917
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“The majority approved. The minority kept silent, and silence gives consent.”
—Editorial, The Memphis Press |
We burned a Negro at the stake yesterday.
Let us underscore the word “WE.”
So if we are proud of it, let us be proud of it together.
If we are ashamed of it, let us be ashamed of it together.
Let's not be cowardly enough to put it off onto someone else, claiming that we were at home attending to business.
It would be as senseless to put all the blame on the man who made the brimstone for the match that ignited the funeral pyre as it would to put it all upon the men who participated in the lynching itself.
Public opinion burned Ell Persons [at] the stake yesterday.
Public opinion burned Ell Persons—the minister of the gospel, the lawyer, the doctor, the newspaper editor, the man who talks to others on the street corner or the street car—he shared in it, that is he did unless he protested and there were few protests.
The majority approved. The minority kept silent, and silence gives consent.
And so, to-day, when the reaction has come and we shudder at the story of the man who cut out the heart of the half-roasted fiend, of the men who severed his head and sped to town to throw it into the street, let us stop and see what part we played in it. And if we find that we don’t approve of it then let’s start creating a public opinion that will uphold the majesty of the law.
Let us resolve that we will put into office only men who realize the responsibility they are assuming.
Let us resolve that when we are called upon to sit on a jury we won't shirk our duty and let chronic jurors bring in a verdict that causes the public to have only contempt for the law.
Many a lynching has been bred in the courthouse.
Let’s realize that as citizens who may want society’s protection we are members of that society and must make it strong.
It cannot be weak for others and strong for us.
It will be as strong or as weak as WE make it. 
The NAACP’s Silent Parade
Introduction & Table of Contents
1917 Suite: A Month, a Year, a Term of Liberty
Introduction & Cross-issue Table of Contents