"Flag Salute" is a poem written by Esther Popel about the lynching of George Armwood on October 18, 1933 in Princess Anne, Maryland.
[4] The poem reflects that lynching in the United States had become a "ritual of interracial social control.
One mile they dragged him Like a sack of meal, A rope around his neck, A bloody ear Left dangling by the patriotic hand Of Nordic youth!
And then they hanged his body to a tree, Below the window of the county judge Whose pleadings for that battered human flesh Were stifled by the brutish, raucous howls Of men, and boys, and women with their babes, Brought out to see the bloody spectacle Of murder in the style of ‘33!
The teeth no doubt, on golden chains Will hang About the favored necks of sweethearts, wives, And daughters, mothers, sisters, babies, too!