"Waco Horror"(May 15,1916)

Of the 492 recorded lynching that occurred in Texas between 1822 & 1930,this incident received the greatest dishonor,both statewide and
nationally.The incident began about Sunday over the evening of May 8,1916,
near the town of Robinson Texas,eight miles south of Waco.
twenty-one-year-old Ruby Fryer and her brother,George,white residents,
returned home from chopping cotton on the family's 200-acre farm
to find their mama,53-year-old Lucy Fryer,bludgeon to death
near the home.
Jessie Washington was arrested for the death of Lucy.Jesse was a 17 year-old
African American farmhand the son of Henry & Martha Washington.He had at least one brother,William.The family had been living and working on the Fryer farm for only five months or so,since the beginning of the year.Jessie was a hefty,strong young man,he was illiterate and possibly mental challenge.After confessing that he had both raped and murdered Lucy was transferred to the Dallas County jail by McLennan county sheriff Samuel S.Flemming.
Jessie trial began in Waco on May 15,in the Fifty-fourth District Court with Judge Richard I Munroe presiding over a courtroom filled to capacity.After
hearing the evidence,a jury of 12 white
men deliberating for only four minutes before returning a guilty verdict against the defendant and giving
and him the death penalty.Before law officers could remove Jesse from the courtroom,a group of  white spectators surged forward and seized the convicted youth.
They rushed him down the stairs at the rear of the courthouse,where a crowd about 400 people waited in the alley.
A chain was thrown around Washington's neck,and he was dragged toward the City Hall,where another group of vigilantes had gathered to build a bonfire.On the grounds,the leaders of the mob threw Jesse onto a pile of  dry-goods boxes under a tree and poured coal oil over his body.
The chain around his neck was thrown over a limb of the tree,and several men joined to jerk him into the air before lowering his body on the pile of wood and lighting a fire for torture.Two hours later several men placed the burned body in a cloth bag and pulled the bundle behind an automobile to Robinson,where they hung the sack from a pole in the front of a blacksmith's shop for public viewing.Later that afternoon constable Les Stegall retrieve the remains and turned them over
to a Waco undertaker for burial.