Subject Matter Expert (SME) - Civil Rights Blog #8:
The Department of Justice’s "Lynching Files", Straight Numeric File Number 158260
Ray Bottorff Jr
The 1890s saw an explosion in white on black racial lynchings. As the 20th Century started, the incidents and brutality only increased. On the national level, individuals and organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) brought to the attention of Presidents, the Congress, the press, and the American public at large the violations happening to African-Americans. Those living in the communities that suffered the brutality turned to the federal government for help. This correspondence would often end up with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
When Congressman George Henry White put forward the first attempt at anti-lynching legislation in 1900, his efforts and future legislative attempts generated correspondence to the DOJ, the Attorney General, the President, and later the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). By 1910, the DOJ decided to find a place for all such correspondence, assigning a file with the case number 158260. Many decades later, they would become known as the “Lynching Files”.
Straight Numerical Files, 1904 - 1974
From 1904 to 1912, Straight Numerical Files, 1904 - 1974 (National Archives Identifier Number 583895) served as the central files of the entire DOJ. Case files and related correspondence were filed according to a system in which each case or subject was given a consecutive number when the first papers on it were filed. The numbering scheme made no distinction as to class, nature, or subject of the file. After 1914, the Justice Department stopped consistently issuing new numbers. Occasionally it appears that perhaps new files were assigned new straight numbers up to the 1940s, however it is possible that so-called “new” numbers were created in the 1930s or 1940s with no corresponding earlier file only due to the original file no longer existing.
Some straight numerical files received an additional designation called “sec.” for section (like sec. 1 or sec 2., and so on), which is numbering given to files that had a lot of correspondence and required additional file folders. This would happen in the case of the “Lynching Files”. Another common feature in the “Lynching Files” were numerical numbers continuously reused over the decades, adding a dash and a number (158260-23 for example) when a new investigation involving the same subject was initiated.
Though simple in its creation, this straight numerical system was complicated in its use. Eventually, seventeen different indexes were created to help organize and locate records for the DOJ and later the National Archives. This filing scheme was replaced by a new filing system in 1914 which assigned a classification number representing an area of investigation and enforcement by the DOJ. It also included a number that designated a region of the country. This filing scheme allowed like-topic records and what regions it came from to be grouped together.
The “Lynching Files”
When the file number 158260 was created in 1910, it just happened to be the number assigned to correspondence regarding lynching against African-Americans. Since lynchings and violence on all levels against African-Americans continued for decades thereafter, so did the correspondence. And since the bulk of these records were about lynchings and efforts to pass federal legislation against it, these records have come to be known as the “Lynching Files”. To understand why these files exist, it is helpful to understand how they were created and how they were handled by the DOJ.
“Letter from Thurgood Marshall, Special Counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), August 13, 1940.” The future justice of the United States Supreme Court, in 1940 Thurgood Marshall was an attorney for the NAACP. In this letter Marshall writes to the Assistant Attorney General O. John Rogge about a lynching of Jesse Thornton that took place in Luverne, Alabama. Thurgood’s correspondence included a report of the investigation conducted by the Birmingham, Alabama NAACP branch of the lynching.
From file 158260 section 48, Straight Numerical Files, 1904 - 1974, in Record Group 60: General Records of the Department of Justice, 1790 - 2002 (National Archives Identification Number: 583895).
“Memorandum from O. John Rogge, Assistant Attorney General to J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), August 26, 1940”, Assistant Attorney General Rogge directs the FBI to “discreetly investigate” the lynching of Jesse Thornton for possible violations of Section 52, Title 18, of the United States Code.
From file 158260 section 48, Straight Numerical Files, 1904 - 1974, in Record Group 60: General Records of the Department of Justice, 1790 - 2002 (National Archives Identification Number: 583895).
Initially there was no agency within the DOJ that handled Civil Rights complaints. This changed with the creation of the Civil Liberties Unit within the Criminal Division on February 3, 1939. By 1941, it would be reorganized as the Civil Rights Section. Unfortunately, until the 1950s, the Civil Rights Section was comparatively small and inadequately staffed to handle all the Civil Rights complaints it received. It did not have its own investigators, had no local offices, and had to rely on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to do the actual investigations.
By the 1940s, the “Lynching Files” also often contained correspondence to and from the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. This correspondence would report about matters concerning the investigations done on the section’s behalf. Another aspect of the “Lynching Files” created in the 1940s, as the Civil Rights Section began its work and the number of lynchings decreased across the country, is that the files increasingly covered other civil rights violations against African-Americans. The “Lynching Files” became a catch-all place for the Department of Justice to put correspondence and case files for any issues involving African-Americans.
The Civil Rights Section investigated violations of the 13th Amendment’s prohibitions against slavery and involuntary servitude (in particular, debt slavery better known as “peonage”). It also investigated other civil rights violations like voting rights violations. The section increased those investigations just as the United States entered the Second World War, and many ended up in this set of records.
In early 1942, the files also became the collection place of war rumors involving the African-American community. The most unusual was the belief circulating in the Justice Department that Japanese agents were trying to influence the African-American community in Harlem, New York to be against the war and perhaps hinder its efforts. Subsequent history has shown no known effort by the Japanese Empire to influence African-Americans.
The bulk of the “Lynching Files,” however, pre-dates the creation of the Civil Rights Section and as a result, has a regrettable and common theme: lack of action. The Department of Justice had little legal ability (or interest in some cases) to enforce existing civil rights legislation. Prosecutions after investigations were nearly non-existent.
Worse still, most often lynchings were considered murder, not civil rights violations. Any correspondence replied to (if replies were done at all), directed the letter writer to contact local and state authorities for help. They were told that these matters could not be addressed by the federal government.
Navigating 158260 Files
At the turn of the 21st century, students from the Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland did an internship at the National Archives in College Park, MD and produced a remarkable piece of work. For the 26 boxes of the original “Lynching Files”, they put together an item level index of all the individuals and organizations whose letters the DOJ maintained in this set of records. Among other correspondence, those letters also included requests for help on all matters of civil rights violations of African-Americans.
This index provides the name of the letter writer (when known), to whom it was written, the date of the correspondence (when listed), and the topic of the correspondence. This list is available upon request. Contact the National Archives at https://www.archives.gov/contact to receive a copy of it. It is a valuable starting point for anyone wishing to view these documents.
“RG 60 Straight Numerical File 158260 Lynching Item-Level Index page 282.” An example of the “Lynching Files” item-level index created by the students of Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland. This page includes the names of people who wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in support of the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill. This list includes famous and everyday citizens. Here on this page, we see Alfred A. Knopf (A. A. Knopf), the owner and publisher of Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, one of the predecessor companies of and now publishing imprint for Penguin Random House. Knopf was one of dozens of writers to President Roosevelt urging support of the legislation. The legislation was never passed by Congress.
The Straight Numerical Files is not the only series in which 158260 files can be found. Straight Numerical Litigation Case Files and Enclosures, 1917 - 2000 (National Archives Identifier Number 17408532) was a later series of records that not only contain correspondence files but also FBI case files or case reports of their investigation on the matter at hand. This series includes copies of the investigation given to the DOJ. Even if it resulted in no prosecution, the investigation files remain within these records.
These boxes remain partially restricted (as does the entire series) due to personal information, law enforcement restrictions, and matters of national security. To request access to these records, you will be required to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The “Lynching Files” straight number 158260 represents a tragic time of American history. But those records also represent human resilience. 158260 is not just a file number, but a legacy of those dark times and of people’s struggle for justice.
158260 files and both series, the Straight Numerical Files and Straight Numerical Litigation Case Files and Enclosures, are in Record Group 60: General Records of the Department of Justice, 1790 - 2002, and are located at the National Archives at College Park, MD.