by Philip St. Raymond
for The American Mercury
LOOK AT THE headline and lead article in the Atlanta Georgian newspaper of April 29, 1913, we have illustrated above. Click on this link to see a large and easy-to-read version. “LEE’S GUILT PROVED, Detectives Assert” — “SUSPICION LIFTS FROM FRANK” — “We Have Sufficient Evidence Now to Convict Negro Nightwatchman of Killing Mary Phagan” — “Additional clews furnished by the head of the pencil factory [Leo Frank] were responsible for the closing net around the negro watchman” — “what suspicion had rested on Frank was being rapidly swept away by the damaging evidence against the black man.”
Newt Lee, the nightwatchman of the National Pencil Company was being framed for the murder of Mary Phagan. We know now without the slightest doubt that Lee was innocent. But the pro-Frank forces, even at this early date in the case, were already engaging in the planting of evidence, impersonation of detectives, and other skulduggery in order to pin the crime on an innocent man — and this would not be the last time they would do this.
Just as there is no doubt today that Newt Lee was innocent, there should just as little doubt today that the principal behind this framing attempt was not innocent. The framing of a man who had nothing to do with the murder is not the act of an innocent man.
This new audio book, based on the Nation of Islam’s The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, the best investigative effort made on the Leo Frank case in the last 100 years, will take you on a trip into the past — to the greatest American murder mystery of all time; a mystery that will reveal to you the hidden forces that shape our world even today.
To read all the chapters we’ve published so far, simply click on this link.
We at The American Mercury are now proud to present part 2 of our audio version of this very important book, read by Vanessa Neubauer.
Simply press “play” on the player embedded above — or at the end of this article — to hear part 2 of the book.
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For further information on the Nation of Islam Historical Research Group, readers are encouraged to visit their Web site, noirg.org.