April 23, 1899
Sunday Apr 23, 1899: Du Bois was inspired to greater activism by the lynching of Sam Hose, which occurred near Atlanta in 1899. Hose was tortured, burned and hung by a mob of two thousand whites. When walking through Atlanta to discuss the lynching with newspaper editor Joel Chandler Harris, Du Bois encountered Hose’s burned knuckles in a storefront display. The episode stunned Du Bois, and he resolved that “one could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved.” Du Bois realized that “the cure wasn’t simply telling people the truth, it was inducing them to act on the truth.”
April 23, 1899
