Phagan Family Newsletter Number Seven: 01/25/2021

Last Updated on June 3, 2024 by Mary Phagan

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DENIED!

Georgia state board of pardons and paroles denies Phagan Family December 4th, 2020, request to declassify the non-public documents from it's files on Leo Frank!!!

Georgia’s 106 Year Old Secrets!

The Phagan family filed requests for all of the documents, recordings, and other data related to the case of the convicted murderer Leo M. Frank. We received over 1500 documents in December 2020, which included Alonzo Mann’s videotaped testimony when certain people and organizations were seeking a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank in the 1980s. But some documents were DENIED to the family and considered “state secrets”? In a time where every state agency and politician is preaching “transparency” and open government, how can anything about a 106-year-old case be considered “SECRET”?! We were not told how many documents remain in the “state secret” category; nor were we told what exactly those documents contain. Who and What are they protecting, and Why? There can be no justice or resolution of this case if the state of Georgia will not release documents from a 106-year-old case! And WHY isn’t the media asking these questions and INSISTING on answers?

Censorship continues:

BOOKS have been BANNED, YouTube Videos have been removed and Georgia and Supreme Court records and Original newspaper links are NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Why?

To “silence the opposing view”? What is the truth of the Leo Frank Case? Truth has become inappropriate or offensive or objectionable and is deemed “hate speech” to impose censorship.

FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!!!

Georgia Senator John Ossoff is being compared to Leo Frank.

Will Sen. Ossoff help the Phagan family get to the “truth” of this case? Facts Senator Ossoff should know about Leo Frank: • Leo Frank was prosecuted after a grand jury with five Jewish members indicted him. • All three Georgian newspapers in 1913 had Jewish editors, and they never reported anti-Semitic slurs or shouts either before, during, or after Frank’s trial. • Frank appealed the guilty verdict and lost 13 separate times. • Frank tried to pin the murder of 13-year-old Mary on two different black men, claiming that rape and murder are “negro crimes” and that the blacks who testified against him should be barred because “negro testimony” was invalid. • The claims that the trial was dominated by a mob chanting “Kill the Jew!” were debunked by ADL expert Steve Oney, who said, “It never happened.” • Leo Frank was not lynched because he was Jewish, but because he was a convicted child rapist and murderer. A group calling itself the “vigilance committee” carried out the sentence after Governor John Slaton, on HIS LAST DAY IN OFFICE, commuted Frank’s death sentence.

Why aren’t these facts ever brought up? If one reads the old newspapers, as Oney did, one will not see any mobs or read any anti-Semitism. There were orderly crowds of curious people who patiently waited to get into the courthouse to view the trial, but that was it. Read many of these articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. We have made them available to the public. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting anti- Semitic slurs” at the jurors or anyone else. Even Frank’s “savior,” Gov. Slaton, acknowledged that reality and the fact that the Jewish people were respected members of society in Georgia at the time. The religion of Leo Frank played no role in his guilty verdict or his lynching, which was the result of the reprehensible crime he committed. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court with the shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey. Steve Oney, author of a 742-page book on the case and considered by the ADL as their top authority, reported: “To the extent that there was bias in the coverage, it was mostly in Frank’s favor…” He goes on to state that Atlanta’s newspapers, “evincing the prejudices of the time, ridiculed the state’s star witness—a black factory janitor named Jim Conley…” In fact, in the face of damning evidence Atlanta’s media insisted upon Frank’s innocence and sought to reinforce how much integrity he had as the leader of B’nai B’rith. The three Georgian papers— all with Jewish editors—went along with Frank’s defense team in their racist desire to pin the crime on two separate African American men—first Newt Lee (the night watchman who discovered the body), and then Jim Conley.

Multiple articles are being written every year memorializing Frank’s lynching, either refusing to acknowledge that Leo Frank could have been guilty (based on the mounds of evidence) or blatantly lying and falsely claiming “anti-Semitic mobs” or Frank’s Jewish background was a major factor in the case. This is highly misleading and only serves to spread untruths about the case, and further robs the real victim, Little Mary Phagan, and the Phagan family of true justice.

Michael Beschloss Embarrasses Himself with Frank Tweet

On January 5, 2021, the noted presidential historian Michael Beschloss, tweeted the false and thoroughly debunked fiction that Jews fled the state of Georgia as a result of the lynching of Leo Frank on August 17, 1915. There is no evidence of this alleged exodus and none of the serious historians of Jewish history will back the claim. Several notable scholars correct Beschloss on that issue:

Alleged Jewish Exodus NEVER OCCURRED

Steven Hertzberg: “[T]here was no dramatic exodus or panic. The Jews were frightened, but most went about their business as usual and no serious incidents occurred.” Albert S. Lindemann “Even in Atlanta, where the Jewish community was deeply shaken by the Frank Affair and where Jewish leaders long opposed efforts to rehabilitate Frank because of the hostility such efforts might revive, Jews continued to move into the city in numbers no less impressive than before the Frank Affair.”

Institute of Southern Jewish Life Study “The Community Grows: Despite the fears stemming from the Frank lynching, Atlanta’s Jewish community continued to grow. In 1910 there had been 4,000 Jews, by 1937 there were 12,000.”

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3 “This claim is patently false. The only Jewish exodus from Georgia occurred in 1740, when England banned slavery there. According to historian Rabbi Jacob R. Marcus, Jews left because ‘Negro slavery was prohibited, the liquor traffic was forbidden.’”

Listen & Learn with Audiobooks by the American Mercury

REVIEW: The Murder of Little Mary Phagan is an exceptionally insightful semi-autobiographical book, detailing a fascinating exploration of one of the most sensational criminal cases of all time. What makes this book so intriguing is it provides an intimate view of the Frank-Phagan case from the adult grandniece of the teenage victim — little Mary Anne Phagan, the tragic child laborer who was murdered on April 26, 1913, in Atlanta, Georgia. This true crime monograph is widely regarded as the most even-handed book ever written about the Frank-Phagan affair (1913-1915) and its contentious aftermath (1915-1986). It also provides facts and evidence about the case found in no other book. Mary Phagan Kean also offers a uniquely neutral analysis of the monthlong capital murder trial which ended in Frank’s conviction. Mary Phagan Kean is the namesake of the murder victim, Mary Phagan, being her grandniece. When the author was 13 years old, she discovered her given name was no mere accident or coincidence. When people heard her name, they started asking her questions about whether she was related to the famous little Mary Phagan who had been murdered long ago by Leo Frank on Confederate Memorial Day in 1913. When her family revealed the truth about her blood relation, she immediately became deeply interested in learning about the murder, its investigation, and its aftermath. She has since devoted thousands of hours of her life studying volumes of legal documents, conducting interviews, and reading every surviving newspaper account of the case. This written-from-theheart book is the result. Download the complete audio book as one zip file. You can also download the individual chapters. https://www.maryphagan.org/category/video-collection/murder-of-little-mary-phagan-video-collection/