#lynching

16 Sept 2025

On Monday, September 15, 2025, Mississippi was shaken by two separate tragedies. Within hours of each other, the bodies of 21-year-old student Demartravion “Trey” Reed and 36-year-old Cory Zukatis were found hanging from trees in different cities. While officials are treating both cases as death investigations, the timing, manner of death, and Mississippi’s fraught history with racial violence have drawn public concern.

Civil rights historians note that public hangings of Black men were once used to enforce white supremacy through fear and violence. Even in the modern era, when such cases are ruled suicides, communities often remain skeptical. “There is a deep mistrust because of history,” said one community organizer in Jackson. “When a young Black man is found hanging, people will always question whether it was truly suicide or something more sinister.”

A link to the report:

Screenshots of the article under the cut:

How about sharing where people can help cover the costs for an independent autopsy

How about sharing where to find and support education on lynching and its history in Mississippi

How about sharing where Black folks can call for mental health help through this time without risk of police involvement

"Small hat," is a cheap antisemitic slur which makes it past filtering algorithms, but it's very popular with both Judenhass hobbyists and professionals.

Pairing it with the name of Leo Frank, a Jewish lynching victim, isn't a question - it's a statement about @agasgasblog...but we'll get to that in a minute.

First, let's note that Leo Frank's name is on a lot of hateful lips recently, and maybe this is a good opportunity to explain why that is.

Who was Leo Frank?

In 1913, Leo Max Frank was the Jewish superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. He was accused of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee. The investigation was chaotic, and the trial was steeped in antisemitic rage. Crowds gathered outside the courtroom screaming "Hang the Jew!"

The judge left the windows open so the jury could hear them.

The state's case depended almost entirely on the testimony of Jim Conley, a janitor who admitted to moving the body and changed his story multiple times. No physical evidence tied Frank to the crime. The evidence that existed contradicted the prosecution's timeline.

Despite that, Frank was convicted. In 1915, after appeals failed, Governor John Slaton commuted Frank’s sentence to life in prison, citing the lack of conclusive evidence and his duty to uphold justice. In response, a mob of over 25 prominent Georgia citizens, including lawyers, ex-governors, and judges, broke into the prison, abducted Frank, drove him across the state, and lynched him in Marietta.

They photographed his corpse and printed postcards.

In 1986, the state of Georgia issued a posthumous pardon. The pardon acknowledged that the state had failed to protect Frank’s right to due process and life. It did not formally declare him innocent, but historians overwhelmingly agree that Frank was railroaded.

So why are people suddenly talking about Frank again?

Because far-right pundits are using him (again) as a vessel for conspiracy and Judenhass.

In early 2024, Candace Owens started claiming Frank raped and murdered Phagan, calling him a "wealthy pedophile."

In later statements, Owens suggested the murder was tied to Jewish ritual, explicitly echoing blood libel myths. She linked the case to secret "Frankist cults" and claimed the Anti-Defamation League was founded to protect him, omitting all historical context.

Owens, a lazy, cheap seeker of attention, innovated nothing new in this. It's the same antisemitic lie that helped kill Frank in 1915, cleaned up and fed to a new audience.

It appears on Instagram, on Twitter (the only entity I choose to deadname) , and in conspiracy podcasts.

It spreads because it flatters people into thinking they've uncovered something hidden when all they've actually done is repeat the prosecution's closing argument from 1913. That's the same argument shouted by a lynch mob two years later.

This person cited Frank because they absorbed that script. This wasn't, therefore, a question.

Let’s be specific about what that means.

They chose a slur, referenced a lynching victim, and repeated an accusation designed to frame Jews as predators and liars. This was meant to provoke. That pattern matches the people who built the original case against Frank and the ones now trying to rewrite it for modern audiences.

They didn’t cite a historian, just TikTok ragebait and second third fourth-hand judanhass propaganda. They didn’t check trial transcripts or read the governor's commutation letter. They echoed a lie because it gave them the thrill of sounding dangerous while still hiding behind a layer of anonymity and deniability.

They don’t care about Mary Phagan. They're not interested in justice. They're performing loyalty to a worldview that thrives on enemy narratives and in which Jews are secretly-plotting enemies.

The message wasn't clever. It was a photocopy of a photocopy of a rewrite. The worldview isn't rebellious, insightful, or incisive, it's inherited from mobs who proudly mailed postcards of a hanging corpse.

Frank was innocent.

The people who killed him were not.

The people revising his story today are not.

And neither is the adolescent who owns @agasgasblog.

Sources: