Digital History>eXplorations>Lynching>A Southern Anti-Lynching Movement Arises>Jessie Ames

Jessie Daniel Ames, "Southern Women and Lynching," October 1936

Methods of Procedure . . . Mobs . . . frequently give public warning of their intention to lynch hours and even days before the capture of their suspected victim permits them to act. In these instances the Association has adopted a course of action calculated to focus public attention upon the community in which mob action threatens. . . .

When a lynching has been committed, with or without previous public knowledge, state members of the Association inform the officers of women's organizations of the facts involved in the action of the mob. Regardless of the nature of the crime allegedly committed by the victim of the mob public condemnation is given the lynching, accompanied by the request for a rigid investigation of the mob by state and county officials. . . .

The Association proposes to reach every county in the South by delegating to clubs and societies at the county seat the responsibility for: 1. Interesting every organization of men and women in the county in the campaign against lynching; 2. Securing signatures of officers and members of all organizations, religious, civic, and patriotic, in the town and county; 3. Securing signatures of county officials, preachers, teachers, and laymen.