Draft:Frank Embree

Frank Embree
Born	1880
Died	July 22, 1899(1899-07-22) (aged 18–19) Fayette, Missouri, U.S.
Nationality	American
Known for	Execution without trial for racial reasons

Frank Embree (1880 – July 22, 1899) was an African American boy who was executed without trial for racial reasons in the town of Fayette, Missouri.

Affair

Nineteen-year-old Frank Embree was accused in Fayette, Missouri, of assaulting a white girl named Millie Dougherty. According to newspapers of the time, immediately after the crime, Embree left Missouri to go to Kansas. However, he was captured in Mexico and brought back to Missouri. A crowd of over a thousand people intercepted the convoy, captured him and took him to the crime scene, where he was asked to make a statement. His persistent refusal to admit his involvement angered the crowd and so, about six of the heaviest men stripped him completely and beat him with a long whip horse. Each lash opened his skin, causing blood to flow. Despite this, Embree never flinched. He looked absently at the faces of the crowd and did not utter a word. Twice he fell, perhaps either from exhaustion or perhaps in the hope of ending his agony by breaking his neck.

After he was given 103 lashes, he was allowed to sit down. Again he was interrogated, but maintained his innocence. He was made to stand up again and whipped once more. At this point Embree cried out for mercy. He promised the crowd to tell everything, as long as he was no longer tortured. He also asked not to be burned alive but hanged or shot. After those present agreed, he admitted assaulting Miss Dougherty stating that he had been drunk at the time of the crime and had no help in escaping; was deemed credible.

Embree was then taken 140 meters to an oak tree. He was allowed to say his last words, asked to give his revolver to his mother and a dime he had in his pocket to his father, with a letter communicating his son's fate. The boy apologized to his family and God. The people waited until the end of his prayer and, without further ado, hanged him. His lifeless body, battered and bleeding, was left on display for hours. Millie Dougherty's father forbade those present to shoot or burn her body. Frank Embree is buried in the Mount Nebo Baptist Church Cemetery in Pilot Grove, Missouri.

Cultural influence

Three photographs of the event are known, two depicting the young man alive and one dead. These were published only one hundred years later, in 1999, in a collection with many other lynching images of mainly black prisoners in Roth Horowitz's gallery in New York City. The exhibition was entitled Witness and caused a sensation. The three images by Frank Embree made up a triptych displayed at the end of the gallery.

Image Gallery

• 
  Embree in front.
• 
  Embree from behind.
• 
  Embree hanged.

Related Items

• Lynching in the United States