We don’t know much about Jesse Washington. He was a 17-year-old Black farmhand working in Robinson, Texas, in the spring of 1916. And the only photos that we have of him are of his horrific last moments.
On May 8, 1916, the wife of Jesse Washington’s boss was found murdered in her home. Because Washington had been seen working nearby, authorities arrested him. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death within a week.
Before deputies could take Washington back to jail, a crowd dragged him outside the courthouse. They beat, stabbed, and mutilated him, then slowly burned him to death in front of the city hall. For two hours, at least 15,000 people watched, including the mayor and chief of police.
A professional photographer who was on the scene took pictures of the crowd, the lynching itself, and its aftermath, as spectators posed with and picked at Washington’s charred remains. The gruesome photos, published in W.E.B. Du Bois’ journal The Crisis, helped launch the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign.
Images of Black suffering are often sensationalized to terrorize and traumatize us. But these images also stand as testimonies to a history that many would just as soon pretend never happened. As horrifying as these images are, we owe it to Jesse Washington, George Floyd, and so many others to make sure that what happened to them is never forgotten.