On March 15, 1901, an African American woman named Ballie Crutchfield was lynched by a white mob in Rome, Tennessee.
The mob had tried to murder her brother, earlier that night, but was unsuccessful and took vengeance on his sister, whom they bound, shot, and threw in a creek.
Nobody was prosecuted for the murder;[2] the New-York Tribune wrote on March 16, 1901, "The Coroner's jury found the usual verdict that the woman came to her death at the hands of parties unknown.
The Catholic Sacred Heart Review reported and commented on the lynching on March 23, 1901, in a brief but scathing report:It is a very dull week indeed that does not now bring in the news that a negro has been lynched in some corner of our great, freedom-loving country, where all men are created free and equal, and where education and enlightenment is so far advanced that there is never the least difference made in dealing out justice to white man or negro.
The excuse offered by those addicted to the lynching habit is that it is the only form of justice that is swift, sure and appropriate punishment for the crimes against white women which negroes are said to be most prone to commit.