Phagan Family Newsletter Number Nine: 0731/2022

Last Updated on June 3, 2024 by Mary Phagan

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Broadway play PARADE IS NOT THE “TRUE STORY” OF LEO FRANK

Its sole purpose is to falsely place blame for the murder of Little Mary Phagan on an African-American man named James Conley.

New York City Center (NYCC) has announced that it will present one of the most blatantly deceitful productions ever to appear on an American stage. Parade purports to be a “true account” of the 1913 rape and strangulation murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan in an Atlanta factory. Leo Frank, the factory manager, was arrested and convicted of the crime. I am Mary Phagan-Kean, and I represent the family of Mary Phagan. She was more than a faceless victim of a century-old murder; she was my great aunt and she is the one for whom I am named. I have studied this landmark case and after thousands of research hours I wrote a book on the case titled The Murder of Little Mary Phagan. What the management of NYCC may not know is that when they chose to stage the play Parade, they made themselves part of a cynical attempt to rewrite history and to hide one of the most racist chapters in American history. NYCC’s mission statement claims that they are “committed to being an anti-racist organization.” It further states that they will “Conduct internal and external listening and learning sessions to recognize the challenges faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in society while we identify and reject white privilege in all its forms throughout our organization and industry.” Well, if this is so, then Parade represents a firm step by NYCC in the opposite direction. NYCC chose The Telsey Office to be the casting agency for Parade, and they say this on their website: “We are constantly and endlessly striving to be an actively anti-racist organization through education, communication, and most importantly, measurable action. This includes being unafraid to have uncomfortable conversations...”

Let me be clear, on behalf of the Phagan family: For over a century, powerful members of the Jewish community have taken on Leo Frank as a cause celebre. They falsely claim that Frank was a victim of anti-Semitism and they have mounted an “actively racist” campaign to exonerate him. A major part of that propaganda campaign is Alfred Uhry’s play Parade. But Uhry and those who promote Parade have concealed the fact that Leo Frank and his supporters employed the most racist of tactics to elude justice. Once Frank was accused of the brutal murder of Mary Phagan, he and his team of lawyers attempted to pin the blame on two innocent African American men! The New York City Center and The Telsey Office have now made themselves part of that racist campaign. Here is what scholars of the case have admitted: Dr. Jeffrey Melnick wrote that the supporters of Leo Frank “proved willing to employ racist thinking...”

Theodore Rosengarten wrote that “Frank’s lawyers played the race card for all it was worth.” Even The Telsey Office’s description of Mr. Conley in their casting call is completely inaccurate and full of the same ugly stereotypes promoted by Leo Frank’s defense team. It reads: "[JIM CONLEY] Character is male, 20s, Black. Janitor who works for Leo Frank.... Secretly, he is a convict on the run. Pompous showman with a strong build." (So much for “constantly and endlessly striving to be an actively anti-racist organization through education.”) Further, Alfred Uhry’s Parade demands that we ignore sworn testimony of Leo Frank’s sexual crimes against girls and young women, even before the murder of Little Mary Phagan. Frank, it is now clear, was very much the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein of his era. At least 20 young women and girls Frank employed at the factory he managed testified of how they were victims of his sexual harassment. In 1913, they did not have the #MeToo movement to stand up for them.

A recently published 536-page book titled The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man, by the Nation of Islam (NOI), uncovers new facts showing that Frank and his legal team engaged in one of the most racist trial defenses in American history. The Phagan family has provided physical copies of this book to the NYCC management and staff and media for their own review. Below are some well-researched facts (along with the relevant pages of the book). Are NYCC and Telsey truly “unafraid to have uncomfortable conversations” about the truth of Leo Frank?:

• Leo Frank, as leader of B’nai B’rith, publicly and openly used the N-word in referring to African Americans. His defense attorneys used the N-word and many other racist slurs dozens of times in his murder trial. Frank’s main attorney told the jury: “If you put a [N-word] in a hopper, he’ll drip lies.” (Pages 121-133, 363.)

• The ADL’s claims that anti-Semitic crowds mobbed the courtroom screaming for Leo Frank’s blood are totally false. The ADL’s own expert Steve Oney writes: “It didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple of years after the crime...” Leo Frank himself told a Jewish newspaper publisher: “Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel [murder conviction] that has been framed against me. It isn’t the source nor the result of this sad story.” (Pages 142, 162-171.)

• The 23-member grand jury that indicted Frank for murder included five prominent members of the Jewish community. (See pages 52, notes 102-106; 88 n. 181; 146-147; 160; 212;
338.)

• Leo Frank argued in court that the many African American witnesses that testified should not be believed—simply because they were black—and that “negro testimony” was by definition inferior and unreliable. Further, Frank argued to the all-white jury that murder, rape, and robbery were “negro crimes” and thus, he, a white man, could not have committed the murder of Mary Phagan. (Pages 124-136.)

• Leo Frank personally hired two of the most prominent (and expensive) private detective agencies in America— the Pinkerton and Burns agencies— and both concluded that Leo Frank was the murderer of Mary Phagan. (Pages 47-48; 65-66; 91 note 187; 147; 247.)

• Leo Frank’s own maid, Minola McKnight, swore under oath that Frank’s wife and her mother discussed how Frank had confessed that he had killed a girl. (Pages 378-379, 423-
428.)

• Before Leo Frank accused his employee, James Conley of the crime, Frank accused the African American night watchman who found Mary’s body, Newt Lee. Frank’s hired private eyes actively targeted Lee and actually planted a blood-soaked shirt in the innocent man’s home, and then told the police where they could find that damning “evidence.” At the same time, Frank altered Lee’s workplace time card in order to make Lee the prime suspect. (Pages 35-44.)

• Jewish businessman Albert Lasker financed Frank’s legal defense. His private view of the B’nai B’rith president was harsh and disturbing: “He impressed us as a sexual pervert. Now, he may not have been, or rather a homosexual or something like that.” Lasker said, “I hope he gets out [of prison]…and when he gets out I hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck.” (Pages 216- 217, 254-255, 322.)

• The New York Times reported that Frank’s supporters tried to hire an African-American woman to poison Mr. Conley. She identified the plotters in open court as prominent members of the Jewish community. (Pages 262-263.)

• In court Leo Frank refused to take an oath on the Bible, and then refused to be cross-examined by prosecutors. (Pages 136-140, 362-382.)

• Leo Frank’s attorneys fought tooth and nail to keep Blacks from participating in any part of Frank’s trial. They used their power to eliminate Blacks from the jury pool. (Page 88.)

• Several of Frank’s strongest advocates—including his main lawyer and the man who financed his legal appeals— were both Jewish and open and active members of the American eugenics movement. (Pages 217, 221-222.)

• In 1982 a “witness” named Alonzo Mann materialized, claiming that he was at the factory in 1913 on the day of the murder and saw Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan. I actually interviewed Mr. Mann in my home on July 19, 1983, for four hours. But Mann had given as many as six conflicting stories that are irreconcilable with the known facts. (Pages 435-464.)

There is much, much more that can and will be presented about the murder of Mary Phagan by Leo Frank. The New York City Center management says they are committed to “anti-racism,” but will they continue to perpetuate one of the most racist hoaxes in American history?

Will they “reject white privilege” and confront Leo Frank’s deceitful supporters, or will Parade revenues override their anti-racist commitments?

Will the facts the Phagan family has raised be a part of their “internal and external listening and learning sessions,” or will Leo Frank’s propagandists be their only source?

Scholars Slam “Fictional” Parade Frankly, no serious scholars of this case have ever taken the Leo Frank Broadway Musical "Parade" by Jason Robert Brown, Harold Prince, and Alfred Uhrey, as anything other than a made-up fairy tale to advance a political agenda. Boston University professor Dr. Jeffrey Melnick is author of a book published in the year 2000, about the Leo Frank case, Black–Jewish Relations on Trial: “Uhry has romantic, nostalgic ideas of Southern Jewish culture. I’m pretty critical of him.” “I’m clearly in a strange position of agreeing with a lot of what the Nation of Islam has to say…” In fact, Dr. Melnick was asked directly whether he felt Frank was really guilty. He answered, “I studied all I could and I can’t figure it out still.”

Dr. Melnick says of the Nation of Islam book: “They say this really great thing about how Frank has been used, how Frank has been picked up as this 1915 Jewish martyr who then we used to read backward into Southern history to say Jews have always been in a parallel position to African-Americans. It’s not a defensible story. As a Jewish-American raised on stories of victimhood and vulnerability, I recognize the way these stories are used for sympathy. The Frank case is a zero-sum battle. If Frank didn’t do it, someone black had to do it.” Journalist Steve Oney is the ADL expert on the case. He penned a book of 742 pages titled The Dead Shall Rise: “Uhry took dramatic license to bring the story to life. It’s a play. It’s not a history. It’s a play based on facts. I don’t think Alfred Uhry would tell you it’s the truth. It’s the truth as they see it, as they dramatized it.” Alfred Uhry was asked by an interviewer, “What do you hope people will bring away from this musical?” UHRY: “If people are touched, I’ve done my job. This is risky. Sometimes I think, ‘OK, this time they’re going to catch me, I have no talent, they’re going to nail me for the fraud I am.’” EXACTLY.

In 2019, Pennsylvania College Students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh “rejected the Alfred Uhry play PARADE and the school CANCELLED its performance. For years Uhry, the writer of the movie Driving Miss Daisy, has promoted PARADE as the ‘true story’ of the Leo Frank case.” According to the Jewish Chronicle, “some Point Park students...took issue with the show’s conclusion that implies that Jim Conley, a black janitor and Frank’s main accuser, was the actual perpetrator of the crimes...” Students at Point Park determined that they would not be a part of racist propaganda. Is NYCC Serious About Truthful Dialogue? If one reads the old newspapers, one will not see any mobs or read about any anti-Semitism. Read many of those articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. Our family has made these historical documents available to the public. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting antisemitic slurs,” as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has promoted for decades with absolutely no proof. Even Frank’s “savior,” Gov. John 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 death sentence (execution by hanging) or his lynching. The facts of the murder case and the cache of damning evidence pointed convincingly to Frank having committed a reprehensible crime. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court by shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey.

Author Steve Oney is considered by the ADL to be their top authority. He 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. The play PARADE refuses to acknowledge the evidence of Leo Frank’s guilt in this horrible crime. Will the New York City Center continue to spread falsehoods about the case, and further rob the real victim, Little Mary Phagan, and the Phagan family of true justice?

Where the Phagan Family Stands

The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. For over 100 years, each passing decade brought with it “new historical evidence” falsely claiming to exonerate Leo Frank. The Phagan family has stated since 1982 that if there were clear-cut evidence to clear Frank of this heinous crime, we would come forward and ask for exoneration. However, such historical evidence has never come to light. Rather, there are considerable data, extensive documentation, revealing archival material, and legal, court, and government records that only support and even strengthen the guilty verdict.