Elizabeth City Editorial Says Lynching Is No Deterrent, 1920

“Is Lynching a Deterrent?” an editorial in the July 23, 1920, issue of the Elizabeth City Independent. I think it's also important to remember that the woman in Alamance County was assaulted by a single man. Three men were being held in jail; even if one was guilty, the other two were innocent. 

A Negro possibly wrongfully accused of assault upon a white woman at Roxboro in Person county was taken from the jail at that place and lynched by a mob. It is argued that lynching is an effective example for other rape fiends. The Roxboro mob certainly made a horrible example of their victim.

Fifty miles from Roxboro, in a nearly adjoining county is the town of Graham. Last Saturday night, just a little more than a week following the Roxboro lynching, a Negro went to the home of a white family on the outskirts of Graham, forced a white man’s wife into a room at the point of a gun and committed the very crime for which the Negro was lynched at Roxboro.

The Negro who committed that crime at Graham certainly knew all about what happened to the Negro at Roxboro the week before. If the truth could be ascertained, the only effect that lynching had upon the black man was to arouse in him a hatred of the white people and a passion to commit that crime which most stirs white men’s blood.

Lynching does not deter crime. It only brutalizes and debases those citizens who engage in it.

Let it be said to the credit of the authorities of Graham and the county of Alamance, there was no lynching there. Brave officials and cool-headed citizens took the situation in hand, called in military aid promptly and a disgraceful orgy was averted.