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Sam Hose (Holt) Alfred Cranford was a white planter in Newman, Atlanta. When his worker, a black man by the name of Sam Hose (Holt), asked for a day off to visit his sick mom and for a pay advance, he refused. The next day, Cranford pointed a pistol at Hose and threatened his life. According to a white detective, Hose then flung an axe in self-defense, killing Cranford. Within days, newspapers had begun labeling him as "a monster in human form" who had deliberately snuck up on poor Cranford to bury an axe in his head, and then proceeded to drag Mrs. Cranford into the bedroom to rape her. The story may have had some variations, but the outcome surely did not. 2000 white Georgians watched as Sam Hose (Holt) was chained to a tree, stripped of his clothes, doused with oil, and then had parts of his body cut off before finally being set on fire. His body was cut into pieces and fought for as prized souvenirs. A grocery store displayed his charred knuckles. A sign was put up next to his ashes the next day that read, "WE MUST PROTECT OUR SOUTHERN WOMEN." A local newspaper defended the lynchers, describing them as, "(P)eople intensely religious, home-loving, and just. There is among them no foreign or lawless element." And like most, if not all, lynchings, no one was ever prosecuted.
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