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seeking justice: the leo frank case revisited
February 10 - December 31, 2008
Thirteen-year-old Mary
Phagan was found brutally
murdered at the National
Pencil Company, where she
was employed. Leo Frank,
the Jewish factory superintendent,
was arrested, tried,
convicted and sentenced to
death. Georgia’s governor
commuted Frank’s sentence to life in prison, but
Frank, kidnapped from his cell, was lynched by a mob
of prominent citizens.
Ironically, the case ignited a
fervor that led to both the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan
and the reaffirmation of the mission of the Anti-
Defamation League.This case was the driving force
behind a number of Supreme Court rulings that
redefined due process, and it sparked decades of
debate over Frank’s innocence.
Using artifacts, photographs and documents relating to the two crimes and precedent-setting trial, original newspapers of the day chronicling the case, and interviews with descendants of family members and friends of Leo Frank, Mary Phagan and other key players in the trial and its aftermath, this exhibition will bring new insight to these unsolved murders and the events that led up to them.
Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited
will be accompanied by an illuminating catalogue
enriched with essays written by prominent scholars
and legal experts in addition to compelling public
programs that will explore critical issues related to
the murders and subsequent events.
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