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welcome, everyone. it is good to see everybody. we are going to start today's topic is anti-semitism in america at high tide between world war i and world war ii. the last time we discussed anti- semitism, we focused on the years between the civil war and the end of the 19th century, which you will remember was a period that historians called the emergence of a full-fledged anti-semitic society. just for a second, to refresh your memory, one of the events the emergence of that anti- semitic societywas the usioof jews from hotels and places of public accommodation and remember this refers to joseph being excluded from the grand union hotel in saratoga springs, new york, in

1877. we also looked at slides like this one. we see in this image, which is from mazine, it is captioned the dream the realized. you se wewill talk about how the sign of john smith's dry goods is being taken down. it is a little hard to see but it says moses is replacing it. if you look carefully run the other images in the slide, you will see the name of the newspaper and this is from new york. it is now called the jerusalem herald. we also discussed how these kinds of images showed us that the christian/anti-jewish motives that were so prominent co toplay out in

american life and here in 1896 you can see the jews you know they are jews they have stereotypical jewish features. and the are piercing the sides and crucifying, not jesus, but uncle sam. this background is essential for us to understand in this class. we need to know that in order to understand what happens during the high tide of american anti-semitism. one man, perhaps more than any other figure in american history played an outsized role in disseminating anti-semitism in the years between world war i and world war ii and his name, i imagine most you have heard of him, was henry ford . before i turn to ford and his role, we need to spend a few minutes on the leo frank affair.

the trial of leo frank for the murder of mary gan was one of the great trials atthe end of the 19thntury and the beginning of the 20th century in which anti-semitism pleda prominent role. let me llyou a little bit about the trial and what happened. confederate memorial day in 1913, 13-year-old mary fagan went to the factory where she worked to pick up her pay from the factory's superintended, leo frank. leo frank was born in texas but he was raised in brooklyn. that made him unorganized. that will be significant in understanding what happened in this trial. he went to college at cornell and he moved south to become part owner and manager of the national pencil factory, the

business that his uncle owned. and there he married lucille selig, the daughter of a wealthy and established atlanta family. around 3:00 a.m. on sunday, april 27th, 1913, the night watchman at the factory, newt lee had gone down to the basement to use the toilet that was only for african americans in the jim crow south. he found mary fagan's mutilated body. suspicion initially fell on newt lee. almost immediately turned to leo frank. frank, then and forer afterwards, maintained his innocence. newspapers began inflaming the e trial was absolute circus. prosecutors dorsey was out for

blood. he sed frank of sexually molesting the factory girls. and when frank was convicted, his conviction was based on the testimony of an african american ex-convict named jim conley, who had given multiple affidavits with conflicting evidence. you must understand that in the south, only a jew could be convicted based on the testimony of an african american man. after the trial, the georgia newspapermen said, if the jury and the frank case had brought in a verdict of not guilty, the defendant would have been lynched. frank was sentenced to hang. anti-judaism figured prominently in the trial. i actually found

a letter that frank's mother wrote to washington post. in it she -- i will quote her words, the insults, the innuendos and the slander directed not only at her son during the trial but also at their religion. she like in the case -- this is important for us to put understand about this in a wider perspective -- she like in the case to another fairly recent international anti- semitic crisis, the dreyfus affair's. i don't know how many of you have studied the dreyfus affairs. in 1894, in ance, alfred dreyfus, who you see here, army, was wrongfully convicted ivg military secretsto

the germ he was sentenced, not only to life imprisonment but he was sent to devils island off the coach of south america, where he was in solitary confinement and actually chained to his bed at night. meanwhile, evidence began servicing that the espionage was still going on. in france, they began to argue, there was arguments is pulled over so much that the french writer, zola published on the front page of a major newspaper, a letter accusing the government and the army of having conspired to convict dreyfus, which was true. they manufactured evidence against dreyfus. his letter named various military officers and he said

that they had subverted the truth to preserve the honor of the army and the military and of the government. he called for justice for dreyfus. the letter sparked a trial because if that evidence that he said was false then he sued for liable. it ultimately led to exonerating dreyfus and reinstating him in the army. we see here is his court- martial. leo frank's mother alluded this in her letter. she was writing of the rig trial that had sentenced her son to hang. she cried out. for an american zola to expose the lies the heck convicted her son. another international trial

also figures. in 1911 in russia , russian empire, a jew a mendel bayless , who was a laborer was charged with ritual murder. some of you have studied the ritual murder accusation before, i know talia has. ritual murder is a medieval trope which says that the jews murder christian children to use their blood for religious purposes. it first surfaced in the 12th century in england and then it spread to the continent. here is another example of the ritual murder accusation. but bayless refused to confess instead, he spent two years in jail and then was ultimately acquitted by a jury of russian peasants for a crime that he had not committed.

the point is, you need to understand that american jews were looking at the frank trial and fearing that these cases marked a new moment. they were not isolated instances. they were linking them together and seeing a frightening pattern. for jewish communal leaders in the u.s., frank's conviction proof that anti-semitism threatened all jews. after the trial ended, and while frank's alloys were appealing the conviction, calmly's lawyer -- the african american whose testimony frank was convicted -- con -- calmly's lawyer became convinced that his client was lying and that frank was innocent. so now things began raging in georgia about whether or not the governor should commute

frank's sentence from death to life imprisonment. having doubts about frank's convection, on june 21st, 1915, on the eve of when frank would have been executed because all his appeals have en exhausted, the governor of georgia, john slayton, commuted his sentce to life imprisonment. i want you to look at these words. this is what he said. 2000 years ago, another governor washed his hands and turned a jew over to a mob . for 2000 years that governor's name has been accursed. if today another jew were lying in his grave because i had failed to do my duty , i would offer life, find

his blood on my hands and would consider myself an assassin through cowardice. you know who he was referring to? jesus. pontius pilate, the governor of jerusalem, and the trial of jesus that led to his crucifixion it is an incredible statement. he faced violence for commuting the sentence. two months after the sentence was commuted, a mob of 25 leading citizens of marietta, georgia, including be solicitor general, who is supposed to protect the law. without firing a shot went to the prison where frank was being held, pulled him out and lynched him. i decided after talking with grace the other day, i decided not to show you a photo of the lynching. there are photos that show men

and boys staring at the camera with glee. you can see frank's body three from the tree behind them. there are many different photos that were taken. since they were sold as postcards. if you want to go online, you can find them. what was the response to the trial and the lynching? in 1913 when frank was first d,an important jewish talked about than in the 1840s, known as the sons e covenant, they created an organization called the anti- defamation league. you know from when we were discussing his legacy organization in class, the anti- defamation league still exist today. fights anti-semitism but it also fights all forms of hatred

and bigotry. another response was that scholars estimate half of the 10,000 jews living in georgia fled the state after frank's trial and lynching. i think you can understand why. it had become dangerous to be a jew in georgia. as for the men who had lynched frank, they were called the knights of mary phagan, the knights of the little girl who was murdered. they would evolve into the secondnine. in the 1920s they would target not only african americans but also jews. i said a few minutes ago frank

was a norman her. he was seen as an outsider. the public response to the trial really shows this tension between changes underway in the south that southerners thought the northerners had brought, especially the evils associated with industrialization and urbanization. it was lowering a poor southerners to the cities where there were harsh conditions in the factories. children like mary phagan work for $.10 an hour, 10 hours a day. they were reading the urban evils of slums and crime. certainly, these conditions influence the verdict in the case. i want to bring up a little closer to our own day. calls for justice for frank would continue to ring out over the years.

in 1982, 82-year-old alonzo mann , who had been an office boy at the pencil factory came forward with an affidavit attesting to new evidence in the case that would exonerate frank. now he said that he had seen jim connolly carrying the body of a girl at about the time that mary phagan was murdered . and calmly threaten him saying, if you ever mention this, i will kill you. mann was just a teenager, about 13 years old. he went and told his mother and she told him not to tell anyone. although some have questioned the truth of mann's belated affidavit, the georgia board of pardons issued a pardon for leo

frank it based on this new evidence but on the fact that the state of georgia had failed to guarantee frank my's constitutional rights and ensure his safety in prison. to this day people debate whether frank was innocent or guilty ran on the hundredth anniversary of the case back in 2013, media was all over the story, once again. in atlanta a rabbi held a service marking the event. not only did atlanta jews, but the grandchildren and great- grandchildren of those who had lynched frank came to the service. questions about the tragedy when affair ? questions about the trial? sophia. >> you said, you mentioned how no one else in the south would be able to be convicted on the

testimony of an african american man. does that make jews above, equal or below african americans in the south in the social. >> it is a great question because we talk about jews and racial ideology. in the great book the price of whiteness. it shows how in the south but also jews in general , in this time period. they are not seen as white. they are not seen as african americans. they are not black. they are seen racially as others. that is why i was making that point first of all, this is an era when african american men were lynched and would continue to be lynched in the 1960s. and these men were lynched by

the leading citizens of their towns. and they got away with worth murder. they could do that because they were able to take advantage of the rachel difference -- racial difference. the case that blows that open was the murder of anna tell. and how his mother, so brilliantly by keeping that coffin open and showing but those two men had done that she blew open the civil rights movement and what is amazing about this case is where the two men who murdered him, they were found innocent by a jury of their peers. a few months later, they sold their story to a magazine and confessed that they had actually done it that they cannot be tried for the crime a second time.

jews have this in between states in the south . nice, really nice. >> leo frank went to texas , new york and then georgia. would the situation had been different if he had never gone to new york or if you just gone from texas to georgia? when he still have been 87 jew ? >> would he have not been an outsider are not different because he went to college ? may be . if he would have stayed in the south -- this is also about the legacy and tension between the north and the south after the civil war. it is part of the same process. anti-semitism is part of the story. it is not the only part of the story. xenophobia -- we will see this in a minute -- xenophobia was rising around america these years.

how about if i move on to th next example? as a frank's case -- i did not show you best. it is an artist's interpretation. as a frank's case was -- and his appeals are making headlines around the world -- two men known for their and price it best anti-semitism called for new trial. one was thomas edison and the other was henry ford . ford is responsible for publishing in the united states and around the world the most influential anti-semitic tract in all of history, the protocols of the elders of zion. how many of you have heard of the protocols before? met everyone. we will talk about them in a little bit. the protocols first appeared a russian newspaper in 1903.

they are clearly a fabrication that is actually based on a novel that was written, a satirical novel, political satire, that was about napoleon iii from france. it was a translation of the french tax. the message of the protocols is straightforward and absolutely rrifying. they charge at the rise of liberalism had proved the jews with the tools to ferment the revolution destroying the world order and the historic bastions of power, like the nobityand church. and jews were about to take control of e world. you can see a ti quote from the protocol number one. in all parts of the world the words liberty, equality and fraternity -- obviously referring to the frch revolution has brought whole

legions into our ranks because the protocols are beg spoken by an elder of the jewish community. these words were worms which run the prosperity of the gentiles everywhere destroying peace, quiet and solidarity and undermining all the foundations of their states. if you would read into these more deeply, you would see that the protocols dress -- dredge up century-old stereotypes. charges about jews controlling money, exercising power behind the scenes. they control the media. they control the governments around the world. and they announced that the jews are succeeding . soon, they are going to take over the world and control it for all time. since our focus is on the interwar period, i'm not going

to about how the protocols circulatedaround the world today. i will just show you one example. in march of this year, not even half a year ago or so, the u.s. capitol police officer was suspended after copy of the protocols was found near his workstation. the question is, why are they so popular? they are so popular because if you read them, you are not reading an account of a plot to destroy the world. you are hearing the first- person testimony of the leaders of the plot. you are dropping right in on the plot to control the world. it is evidence of the plot. our first question is how do they come to america and how do they get disseminated in america ? white russians fling the bolshevik revolution

convinced there was a judeo bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow bazaar. they took the text with them and publish them wherever they went. they got published london, paris, warsaw and tokyo. the german version, which i showed you in the other slide was reprinted 32 times before hitler came to power. they were brought to the u.s. by boris, a white russian immigrant. the question is how does ford get involved ? in his book, henry ford and the , neil baldwin thinks that ford's ti-semitism was influenc the mcguffey readers. the other day we talked about their christian lessons. he thinks that ford's anti- semitism was traditional anti-

judaism coming out of christianity. during world war i, ford's anti- semitism became increasingly manifest. he blamed the jews for causing what was called the great war it would not be called world war i until we had world war ii. ford, who actually ran for president, he was man of the year in time magazine. he was the most famous american of his generation. ford in 1919 went and bought a newspaper, the dearborn independent. it was a weekly. when he saw that it was hemorrhaging money, he told its editors, find an evil to attack . go after it stick with it. the re was the series, the internationaljew , the problem much on may 22nd, 1920,

that ran up for the next 91 issues of the newspaper. you have to understand -- >> you can watch the rest of this at c-span.org. we will leave it now to take you bye in capitol hill. you are watching live coverage on c- span3. in recent years more than 300 people have died of unnatural causes in custody of the presence. does have too often been the result of this management and operational failures. investigation by the marshall project and national public radio three years ago found that the thompson federal prison in my home state of illinois has become one of the deadliest prisons in america because of the defunct a special management unit. i was shaken by the allegations in the article and asked inspector general ha'aretz to examine them. we will discuss the results today.

after media reports late last year alleged that some adults in custody died while awaiting for necessary medical care, i called on bop to change its procedures, staff and supply medical units so incarcerated individuals could receive the care they needed. it is evident that many of the issues the committee has highlighted over the years included understaffing, overuse of restrictive housing and employee misconduct that will continue to have deadly consequences if they go unaddressed. the inspector general report identified 344 nonmedical deaths of adults in custody and it's reviewed period, 2014 to 2021 but the number that demonstrate increased risk to safety of individuals with bop care. bop continues to struggle with contraband interdiction and