Editing Duck Hill, Mississippi (section)

===Duck Hill lynchings of 1937===
{{Main|Lynching of Roosevelt Townes and Robert McDaniels}}
The brutal [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]] of two black men, Roosevelt Townes and Robert "Bootjack" McDaniels, in Duck Hill mid-day on April 13, 1937, gained national publicity. These were among nine lynchings of African Americans by whites in [[Montgomery County, Mississippi]], from the post-Reconstruction period into the 20th century. Most occurred in the decades near the turn of the 20th century.<ref>[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf "Supplement: Lynchings by County/ Mississippi: Montgomery", 3rd edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063004/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |date=October 23, 2017 }}, p. 7, from ''Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror'', 2015 (3rd edition), Equal Justice Institute, Montgomery, Alabama</ref>

The men had been arraigned in the Montgomery County Courthouse in the county seat of [[Winona, Mississippi|Winona]], charged with murdering George Windham, a grocer in Duck Hill, in December 1936. Both men pleaded not guilty. Outside the courthouse a crowd had gathered, and then a group of 12 white men abducted the two accused men from the courthouse.<ref name="winona">[http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/wp-content/uploads/Dual-Lynching-Condemned-by-Nation.pdf "Roosevelt Townes and Robert "Bootjack" McDaniels", Northeastern University's Center for Civil Rights and Restorative Justice; News Articles: "Dual Lynching Nationally Condemned" and "Mob Lynches Two Negroes Tuesday near Duck Hill"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140923010659/http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/wp-content/uploads/Dual-Lynching-Condemned-by-Nation.pdf |date=September 23, 2014 }}, ''Winona Times'', April 15, 1937; accessed March 18, 2017</ref>

Townes and McDaniels were loaded into a school bus and driven to a wooded area near Duck Hill. Hundreds of white people followed, and a crowd estimated at 300-500 looked on as Townes and McDaniels were each chained to a tree.<ref name=Clarion>{{cite news|title=State Lynching Stirs U.S. Action: 2 Negroes Slain By Mob, Officers Will Investigate|location=Jackson, MS|newspaper=The Clarion-Ledger|date=April 14, 1937}}</ref><ref name=Charge>{{cite news|title=Murder Charge at Duck Hill|location=Greenwood, Mississippi|publisher=The Greenwood Commonwealth|date=April 6, 1937}}</ref> A blowtorch was used to torture them, until each confessed to Windham's murder. Gasoline was doused on Townes, and on brush around him, and he was burned to death. McDaniels was riddled with bullets, and fatally shot through the head.<ref name=Clarion/>

The police officers who had been guarding the two defendants said they were unable to identify any members of the mob.<ref name=Clarion/> As was typical in lynching cases, no one was charged in the abduction or murders.<ref>{{cite book | last = Wood | first = Amy Louise | title = Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 | publisher = University of North Caroline | year = 2009 | isbn = 9780807878118 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=txZ8PZRsk0YC&pg=PP1}}</ref>

Newspapers carried a photograph of McDaniels' burned and tortured body chained to a tree, and the lynchings were nationally condemned. German newspapers at the time used the murders for propaganda, contrasting the lynchings to controls in Nazi Germany under the "humane" [[Nuremberg Laws|Nuremberg racial laws]].<ref>{{cite web | title = Lynchings Top NAZI Papers | publisher = San Jose News | date = April 13, 1937 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yVoiAAAAIBAJ&dq=duck%20hill%20mississippi&pg=868%2C1452671}}</ref>

Such publicity enabled [[Joseph A. Gavagan]] (D-New York) to gain support for anti-lynching legislation he had put forward in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]]; it was supported in the [[United States Senate|Senate]] by Democrats [[Robert F. Wagner]] (New York) and [[Frederick Van Nuys]] (Indiana). The legislation eventually passed in the House, but the white Democrats of the [[Solid South]] (most blacks in the region were disenfranchised) blocked it in the Senate, with Senator [[Allen J. Ellender|Allen Ellender]] even proclaiming, "We shall at all cost preserve the [[white supremacy]] of America."<ref>{{cite web|title=Congressional Record – Senate |date=January 20, 1938|url=https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1938-pt1-v83/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1938-pt1-v83-16-1.pdf|format=PDF|website=Gpo.gov}}</ref> Their colleagues had similarly defeated anti-lynching legislation in the 1920s that was passed overwhelmingly by the House.<ref>{{cite book | last = Finley | first = Keith M. | title = Southern Opposition to Civil Rights in the United States Senate: A Tactical and Ideological Analysis, 1938-1965 | publisher = Louisiana State University | year = 2003 | url = http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0702103-151627/unrestricted/Finley_dis.pdf | access-date = August 9, 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140611220610/http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0702103-151627/unrestricted/Finley_dis.pdf | archive-date = June 11, 2014 | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Weiss | first = Nancy Joan | title = Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR | publisher = Princeton University | year = 1983 | isbn = 9780691047034 | url = https://archive.org/details/farewelltopartyo00weis| url-access = registration }}</ref>