Ell Persons was a black man who was lynched on 22 May 1917, after he was accused of having raped and decapitated a 15-year-old white girl, Antoinette Rappel, in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He was arrested and was awaiting trial when he was captured by a lynch party, who burned him alive and scattered his remains around town, throwing his head at a group of African Americans. A large crowd attended his lynching, which had the atmosphere of a carnival. No one was charged as a result of the lynching, which was described as one of the most vicious in American history, but it did play a part in the foundation of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP.
Death of Rappel and arrest of Persons
Described as "[i]nnocent, pure, pretty, by turns playful and pensive" and as someone who "must have reminded many readers of their own daughters, nieces, or cousins", Rappel was a student at Treadwell School in Memphis. On the morning of 30 April 1917, she left for school and did not return; on 2 May 1917 a newspaper published a story which said she left to join the war, a story her mother, Mrs Wood, reportedly believed. Later, Rappel was found dead, with evidence she had been raped, in woods near Macon Road and half a mile from the home of Persons, a nearly fifty-year-old woodcutter. She had been decapitated with an axe. At the scene, they found a white coat, a white handkerchief, and axe dents in the ground. After the arrests of several black men, the police brought in Persons, and subjected him to brutal treatment for 24 hours, after which the police said he confessed to the murder. Sheriff Mike Tate, Deputy Sheriff M.W. Palmer, City Detectives C. A. Brunner and J. W. Hoyle alternated with rapid fire questions that led to the confession. Eager to prove Persons' guilt, Mike Tate, Shelby County sheriff, ordered that Rappel's body be exhumed so that they could look at her pupils, because the authorities thought that a photograph of the pupils could be used to show the last image seen by a person who had died, a theory developed by Alphonse Bertillon, a French biometrics researcher of that time. Despite being told by eye specialists that it would be impossible, the authorities said they saw Persons in Rappel's pupils—which showed a "frozen expression of horror"—and he was taken to Tennessee State Prison in Nashville to await arraignment and trial. Deputy Sheriff Palmer along with Detectives Brunner and Hoyle encountered angry mobs at nearly every city along the way before they safely reached Nashville via train and placed Persons in custody.
Capture A few weeks later, on 19 May, Tate ordered that Persons be returned to stand trial on 25 May, and on 21 May Persons was on a train to Memphis when he was captured by a lynch party, an event which was planned and which was reportedly anticipated by the authorities. The group had earlier stormed the Memphis police headquarters and did not find him there; knowing he had to return, they started searching trains bound for Memphis. The press reported that the mob was organised—one newspaper reporting "That the mob ... is determined to lynch the Negro is evident"—and may even have raised funds for those spying on Persons at Nashville. David J. Mays, who later became an attorney and Pulitzer Prize winner, was one of those involved in the planning; he "howled with excitement" when he heard the news of the capture, news that quickly spread to nearby towns. On 17 May judges from the county criminal court had tried but failed to persuade the state governor, Thomas Clarke Rye, to send men to protect Persons. Even before the capture, the press had been predicting that unofficial action would be taken against him. There is no evidence, according to Margaret Vandiver and Michel Coconis, that the authorities tried to regain Persons or to prevent the lynching.
Lynching The Commercial Appeal's headline on the day of the lynching, 22 May, read:
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