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During six weeks of the months of March and April just past, twelve colored men were lynched in Georgia, the reign of outlawry culminating in the torture and hanging of the colored preacher, Elijah Strickland, and the burning alive of Samuel Wilkes, alias Hose, Sunday, April 23, 1899.
The real purpose of these savage demonstrations is to teach the Negro that in the South he has no rights that the law will enforce. Samuel Hose was burned to teach the Negroes that no matter what a white man does to them, they must not resist.
Sam Hose was an African American worker who was lynched in Newnan, Georgia on April 23, 1899, in front of 2,000 white people, many of whom had travelled to Newnan from Atlanta for the occasion. Hose was accused of murdering his employer, Albert Cranford, over a wage dispute. Hose killed Cranford, who had pulled a revolver on Hose, with an axe. Cranford's wife accused Hose of raping her as her husband lay dying, but subsequently admitted to fabricating this claim. Hose's lynching was well advertised ahead of time in newspapers, including the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, which implied Hose would be tortured prior to his lynching. Sam Hose's corpse was mutilated and dismembered (his ears, genitals, and fingers were cut off, and his face skinned). His body was then tied to a tree and set on fire, and parts of him were taken as souvenirs by onlookers.
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