An Unspeakable Crime. Hard Cover. By Elaine Marie Alphin. In 1913, Leo Frank was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of the Atlanta pencil factory that Frank managed. After Georgia’s governor commuted his death sentence, a mob stormed the prison where Frank was being held and lynched him. Leo Frank thus became the only known Jew lynched in American history. The case still spurs debate and controversy –it even inspired a Broadway play. What are the facts of the Frank case? The true story marks a turning point in the history of racial and religious hatred in America, leading directly to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League and to the rebirth of the modern Ku Klux Klan. Relying on primary source documents and painstaking research, award-winning novelist Elaine Alphin tells the true story of justice undone in America. 

Ages 14-18, Grades 9-12, 7 x 10, 152 pages