Jesse Washington Burned Alive Before 15,000 in Waco Texas, Postcards Sold

Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old Black farmhand convicted of murdering a white woman in Waco, Texas, was taken from the courthouse after a trial lasting one hour and subjected to one of the most documented spectacle lynchings in American history. A crowd of 15,000 watched as he was mutilated, castrated, and burned alive over two hours in a fire built in the public square. Photographs were taken and sold as postcards. The NAACP sent investigator Elisabeth Freeman, whose report — 'The Waco Horror' — was distributed as a pamphlet supplement to The Crisis and reached half a million readers.