The Lynching of Leo Frank
Zvi A. Sesling
Big Table
Publishing
Newton, MA
© Copyright 2017 by Zvi A. Sesling
ISBN: 978-1-945917-17-2
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August
17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent. Born to a Jewish-American family in Texas, he was raised in New York and earned a degree in
mechanical engineering from Cornell
University before moving to Atlanta in 1908. He became involved in Atlanta’s Jewish
community and was elected president of that city’s chapter of the B'nai B'rith.
Mary Phagan – then only 13 years old - worked at National Pencil Company,
where Frank was director. She was
strangled on April 26, 1913, and found dead in the factory's cellar.
Leo was charged with, and – after a hasty trial (less than a month from the
opening of the trial to conviction) – convicted of, her murder. Georgia’s
Governor commuted Frank's sentence from capital punishment to life
imprisonment.
On August 16, 1915, Frank was kidnapped from prison by a group of armed men
and lynched at Marietta, GA (Phagan's hometown). The new
governor vowed to punish the lynchers, who included prominent Marietta
citizens, but nobody was charged with Frank’s murder. Ironically, Frank’s lynching was the impetus
for the creation of B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation
League
in October 1913. It also resulted in the
exodus of around half of Georgia's 3,000 Jews.
In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted a posthumous
pardon to Frank, but did not officially absolve him of the crime.
From these horrific facts – the stuff of Dreiser or Thomas Hardy novels –
Zvi Sesling has woven this devastating series of poems. The poems begin - innocently enough - with
recollections of (Sabbath & Passover) dinners and other meals with friends
and family members. (In Jewish culture,
food is never too distant from faith and observance. Indeed, we have detailed treatises on what
may and may not be eaten.) From these
recalled meals, Zvi moves on to the shul (synagogue) – situs of sins and
forgiveness – including one (in Saint
John, New Brunswick) now for sale.
Then, Zvi turns to
the tragic story of Leo and little Mary.
He captures in verse what cannot be fully captured in prose – the
inexplicable (but, nevertheless, all encompassing) hatred which led someone
(not Mr. Frank) to strangle Mary’s young life, and which led others to later
strangle Leo’s.
The poems in this
collection also concern other, more wholesale slaughter of Jews – not limited
to an isolated lynching. Oceans of ink
have been spilled – like wine poured out at Passover – over the atrocities of
the mid-20th Century. Zvi’s
writing is a notable tributary, worth traversing.
The remainder of
this powerful collection is concerned with the poet’s wrestling with his Jewish
identity – a fitting coda to a poetic eulogy for a man hung due primarily to
his. For anyone interested in a dark
moment of American history – or curious about how we find (or obscure) our
identities (an issue not limited to those of a certain tribe) – this collection
is highly commended.
When I read
(and wrote my review of) this excellent poetry collection by Zvi Sesling, I could
not imagine that torch-bearing (albeit Tiki torches) neo-Nazis and their
sympathizers would march in Charlottesville, VA chanting "Jews will not
replace us!" or uttering the hateful slogan "Blood and soil"
(the Nazi etymology of which, I suspect, was unknown to many shouting or
hearing that phrase). I could imagine even less that a sitting President
would fail to immediately and vigorously condemn such actions.
These
recent events make the memory of past events - such as the trial, hasty
conviction and lynching of Leo Frank - all the more compelling. For we
cannot begin to comprehend the horror of the present if we fail to grasp its
antecedents. They do the same for Sesling's haunting poems based on those
events. As Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It is not
even past."
Neil
Silberblatt
Founder,
Voices of Poetry
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