"To Howl Loudly": John Mitchell Jr. And His Campaign Against Lynching in Virginia

If... you Negroes are tired of being abused, misrepresented, Jim Crowed, lynched, burned at the stake and persecuted, then get up and do something for yourself. Marcus Garvey at Richmond, Virginia, July 1922 Among the audience that listened to Marcus Garvey's speech in Richmond in 1922 was John L. Mitchell Jr., editor and publisher of the Richmond Planet, and one of the most outspoken black crusaders against mob violence in Virginia, indeed in the entire South. During the 1890s, when racial tensions and lynching had peaked in Virginia, Mitchell had managed to bridge the growing chasm dividing the races and had devised imaginative strategies to protest against lynching. Although overlooked and unappreciated by Garvey, Mitchell's campaign against lynchings is a powerful reminder that even during the nadir of race relations during the late nineteenth century, blacks were not simply sullen, powerless victims of mob violence.