May 29, 1947: You may recall that the Los Angeles Times devoted two paragraphs on Page 6 to the acquittal of 28 men in the lynching of Willie Earle.

In contrast to the disinterest of The Times, the Sentinel published a Page 1 story and several sidebars on the case, including reports that the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP was calling an emergency meeting for June 1 to urge passage of a federal anti-lynching bill.

And I don’t need to tell you what The Times editorial position was on a federal anti-lynching law, do I?

A story from the ANP (Associated Negro Press) from Greenville, S.C. said:

“The general feeling was that no one had expected a conviction of the 28 whites, nor was there anything less than a jury disagreement expected. The forthright prosecution and conduct of the trial did lead them to hope that a few would be convicted of the conspiracy charge and given a year or two in jail.”