The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hired Elisabeth Freeman to investigate; she conducted a detailed probe in Waco, despite the reluctance of many residents to speak about the event.

[3] Although lynching was tolerated by much of southern society, opponents of the practice emerged, including some religious leaders and the nascent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

[7] Racial tension was present in the city: Local newspapers often emphasized crimes committed by African Americans, and Sank Majors, a black man, was lynched and hanged from a bridge near downtown Waco in 1905.

[8] In 1916, several factors led to an increase in local racism, including the screening of The Birth of a Nation, a movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, and the sale of photographs of a recently lynched black man in Temple, Texas.

[10] News of the death quickly reached the McLennan County Sheriff, Samuel Fleming, who immediately investigated with a team of law enforcement officers, a group of local men, and a doctor.

[15] Newspapers sensationalized the murder, describing Fryer's attempts to resist Washington's attack, but the doctor who had examined her body concluded that she was killed before any assault.

[26] A chain was placed around his neck, and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects.

[29] The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain.

[47] Although some Waco residents sent the cards to out-of-town relatives, several prominent local citizens persuaded Gildersleeve to stop selling them, fearing that the images would damage the town's reputation.

[50] A New York Times editorial opined that, "in no other land even pretending to be civilized could a man be burned to death in the streets of a considerable city amid the savage exultation of its inhabitants".

[51] Although many southern newspapers had previously defended lynching as a defense of civilized society, after Washington's death, they avoided casting the practice in such terms.

The Waco Morning News briefly noted disapproval of the lynching, focusing criticism on papers they felt had attacked the city unfairly.

[35] The judge who presided over Washington's trial later stated that members of the lynch mob were "murderers"; the jury's foreman told the NAACP that he disapproved of their actions.

[61] There were no negative repercussions for Mayor Dollins or Police Chief Guy McNamara; although they did not attempt to stop the mob, they remained well respected in Waco.

[63] When George Fryer sued the college for libeling him as a murderer, some Robinson residents interpreted his very umbrage as a sign that he had played a part in his wife's death.

[64] Bernstein states that it is "highly unlikely" that George Fryer played a role in Lucy's murder but notes that there is the "shadow of a possibility" that he bore some guilt.

Some people in the local African American community saw the tornado as divine retribution for the lynching of Jesse Washington over thirty years prior.

Du Bois had been incensed by news of the brutal attack, saying "any talk of the triumph of Christianity, or the spread of human culture, is idle twaddle as long as the Waco lynching is possible in the United States".

[74] After receiving Freeman's report, he placed a photograph of Washington's body on the cover of The Crisis, the NAACP's newsletter, in a special issue that discussed the event.

The NAACP's board was initially hesitant to publish such graphic content, but Du Bois insisted on doing so, arguing that uncensored coverage would push Americans to support change.

[84] Leaders of the NAACP hoped to launch a legal battle against those responsible for Washington's death, but abandoned the plan owing to the projected cost.

[97] Bernstein states that Washington's lynching was a unique event because of its scale and location; not only did it occur in a larger city with a reputation for progressiveness, but it was attended by 10,000 spectators who were excited by the brutal torture.

[101] Bernstein compares the public brutality of the lynch mob to the medieval English practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering people convicted of high treason.

[103] Although the spectacle of violent mob attacks had previously benefited white supremacists, Wood contends that after Washington's death was publicized, the anti-lynching movement included images of racially motivated brutality in their campaigns.

[103] Carrigan notes that Washington's death may have received more public attention than any other lynching in the United States, and sees the event as a "turning point in the history of mob violence in Central Texas".

[65] White leaders of Waco took a non-violent approach in response to demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement, possibly owing to a desire to avoid stigmatizing the city again.

[108] Waco-based novelist Madison Cooper featured a lynching, thought to be based on Washington's death, as a key event in his 1952 novel Sironia, Texas.

[115] On February 12, 2023, a racially diverse crowd of more than 300 people, including those who have worked on the Jesse Washington marker for the past seven years, gathered on Third Street in front of Waco City Hall.

Joining them were relatives of Sank Majors, a black man who was seized by a mob in 1905 while waiting retrial on rape charges and hanged from the Washington Avenue Bridge.

[116] In the 2018 film BlacKkKlansman, Harry Belafonte portrays a witness to the lynching who describes the event to a civil rights rally in 1970s Colorado Springs.