Yellow Journalism Played a Big Role in the 1913 Atlanta Lynching of Leo Frank, According to Novelist Mary Glickman
"Ain't No Grave," A novel by Mary Glickman, published on July 9, 2024
Mary Glickman's "Ain't No Grave" is available now. Prepare to have your heart broken
Her 6th Historical Fiction Novel About Racism and Antisemitism in the Deep South, ‘Ain’t No Grave’ is now available wherever books are sold
It also transcends time.
In an op-ed published today2 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Glickman notes that the early 20th Century news media played a direct role in the murder of Frank: “The Atlanta newspapers murdered Leo Frank. Let’s be honest about that.”
She makes a stark comparison to the media in 2024, which “is as wild as anything Frank knew but on a grander, more expansive scale,” noting that “…the Internet has created innumerable news portals, universal in view, so that one can pick and choose support for one’s preconceived notions as easily as dropping a nickel in the palm of a late edition hawker in 1913.”
“Once again,” She adds, “the molding of public opinion is in the grasp of too many reckless – and often powerful – hands.”
In a review published July 83 in Canada’s Jewish Post & News, features writer Bernie Bellan writes, “The role that many newspapers at the time played in stoking antisemitism also provides a salutary experience in how easy it has always been to dupe a huge proportion of the American public though fictitious media reporting. In 1915 it was through newspapers; today, it’s through the internet.”
Here’s a summary of the book:
1913. The year heart-sick Max travels to Atlanta to find Ruby, his lost love and childhood friend. And the year New York Jew, Leo Frank, is charged with the murder of a child laborer at the National Pencil Factory. Max is Jewish and Ruby’s Black. Their reunion takes place just as Frank is arrested, a racially charged event that sparks an explosion of antisemitism across the city of Atlanta.
Max lands a job as a cub working under the Atlanta Journal’s star reporter, Harold Ross, who would later found the New Yorker. Ruby’s worked at the National Pencil Factory since she was 13. Although reunited, the lovers’ road to happiness is in doubt after each becomes intimately involved in Frank’s trial, one that pits Blacks and Jews against each other.
Both Max and Harold love Ruby and when she is called to testify by the prosecution, they work to protect her. She is required to protect herself. Together, the three bear witness from the murder of Mary Phagan to the trial and lynching of Leo Frank and the founding of the ADL.
About Mary Glickman
Mary Glickman (www.MaryGlickman.com) is the author of six historical fiction novels, “Home in the Morning,” National Jewish Book Awards Finalist “One More River,” “Marching to Zion,” “An Undisturbed Peace,” listed by Southern Living as a best novel of 2016, and “By the Rivers of Babylon.” Her latest work, “Ain’t No Grave,” was published on July 9, 2024 and is available on Amazon wherever books are sold.
Brian T Hyland
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1 https://amzn.to/3RnryzL
2 https://www.ajc.com/opinion/what-we-can-lean-from-leo-franks-1915-lynching/ESICIFTU5FFKBEUVWZC6GGTD7M/
3 https://jewishpostandnews.ca/features/aint-no-grave-new-novel-set-in-deep-south-in-early-20th-century-combines-interracial-love-story-with-searing-description-of-the-leo-frank-trial-and-lynching/
