The Chattanooga Times spoke the concern of many a Southerner: "[Picky Pie] Hill was murdered, but it is the South which again was lynched in the unreasoning fury of a cowardly mob." There was some question whether it was actually the act of a mob (see above). But inevitably, the report of the year's first lynching* attracted wide attention in the nation's press, obscuring the slower, less spectacular but undeniable improvement in the Negro's lot in the South.
Some 700,000 Negroes qualified to vote in the 1948 elections—six times more than in 1940—and the...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
