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Ell Persons was an African American man who was lynched on 22 May 1917, after he was accused of having raped and murdered a 16-year-old white girl, Antoinette Rappel, in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He was arrested and was awaiting trial when he was captured by a lynch party, who burned him alive and scattered his remains around town, throwing his head at a group of African Americans. A large crowd attended his lynching, which had the atmosphere of a carnival. No one was charged as a result of the lynching, which was described as one of the most vicious in American history, but it did play a part in the foundation of the Memphis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). == Death of Rappel and arrest of Persons == Described as "()nnocent, pure, pretty, by turns playful and pensive" and as someone who "must have reminded many readers of their own daughters, nieces, or cousins", Rappel was a student at Treadwell School in Memphis. On the morning of 30 April 1917, she left for school and did not return; on 2 May 1917 a newspaper published a story which said she left to join the war, a story her mother, Mrs Wood, reportedly believed. Later, Rappel was found dead, with evidence she had been raped, in woods near Macon Road and half a mile from the home of Persons, a nearly fifty-year-old woodcutter. She had been decapitated with an axe. At the scene, they found a white coat, a white handkerchief, and axe dents in the ground. After the arrests of several black men, the police brought in Persons, and subjected him to brutal treatment for 24 hours, after which the police said he confessed to the murder. Eager to prove Persons' guilt, Mike Tate, Shelby County sheriff, ordered that Rappel's body be exhumed so that they could look at her pupils, because the authorities thought that a photograph of the pupils could be used to show the last image seen by a person who had died, a theory developed by Alphonse Bertillon, a French biometrics researcher of that time. Despite being told by eye specialists that it would be impossible, the authorities said they saw Persons in Rappel's pupils—which showed a "frozen expression of horror"—and he was taken to Tennessee State Prison in Nashville to await arraignment and trial.〔Goings and Smith. *For the description of Rappel, see ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly''. *For leaving school, the newspaper story of Rappel, half a mile, and Persons' age, see ''The Crisis'', August 1917. However, one source refers to Persons as "young"; see Honey, Michael Keith (2002). (''Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle'' ), University of California Press, p. 37. ISBN 0-520-23205-4. *For Macon Road and that Rappel's mother was called Mrs Wood, see ''The Crisis Supplement'', July 1917. *For the eye specialists, see Vandiver and Coconis, p. 897. *For the prison, see Mays.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lynching of Ell Persons」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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