THE STATES: Texas Minds Its Own Business

Not since 1930 had Texans felt the need for a real anti-lynch law. That year a mob in Sherman, Tex. hanged a Negro accused of rape, and while its fury was still up, set fire to Negro business buildings in the town. The fire got out of hand, destroyed a good part of the white folks' downtown district too, including the courthouse. It was the last big mob lynching in Texas' violent history (score: 551 lynchings). Now that President Truman was trying to impose an anti-lynch law on the South, Texans got to thinking again of passing one of...

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