EOU
Chamber Choir presents "A Night on Broadway" featuring "Parade"
by Peter Wordelman
La Grande Rotary Club
presents
EOU Chamber Choir
"A Night on Broadway"
featuring
"Parade"
The tragic, true story of the trial and lynching of
a man wrongly accused
of murder is brought to emotional and theatrical life by acclaimed
playwright Alfred Uhry ("Driving Miss Daisy") and Jason
Robert Brown, one
of Broadway's most promising young composers ("Songs For A New
World").
In 1913, Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-born Jew living in
Georgia, is put on trial
for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under
his
employ. Already guilty in the eyes of everyone around him, a sensationalist
publisher and a janitor's false testimony seal Leo's fate. His only
defenders are a governor with a conscience, and, eventually, his
assimilated Southern wife who finds the strength and love to become
his
greatest champion.
Daring, innovative and bold, "Parade" won
well-earned Tony® Awards for Best
Book and Best Score in 2000. Its subject matter offers a moral lesson
about
the dangers of prejudice and ignorance that should not be forgotten.
Friday, January 31st 7:30 p.m. McKenzie Theatre
Saturday, February 1st 7:30 p.m. McKenzie Theatre
Sunday, February 2nd 3:00 p.m. McKenzie Theatre
Adults $6 Students and Seniors $4
Advanced ticket sales at Sunflower Books, EOU Bookstore and at the
door
Leo Frank: A Legal Legacy
Compiled by Sandra Berman, Beatrice Fine and Marlis Grad
Leo Frank was born in Cuero, Texas on April 17, 1884.
His family moved to
Brooklyn, New York shortly after his birth. As alluded to in the musical
Parade, Leo Frank was indeed highly educated. He attended public schools,
the Pratt Institute, and earned a degree in mechanical engineering
in 1906
from
Cornell University. After a nine-month apprenticeship in pencil
manufacturing in Europe, Leo Frank helped to establish a pencil factory
in
Atlanta. Frank, who managed the factory, also co-owned the plant with
his
uncle Moses Frank. In 1910 he married Lucille Selig, a native of Atlanta,
and they lived with her parents. Atlanta was the largest Jewish community
in the South. Although many
sources portray Frank as a socially awkward loner, in 1913 he served
as
President of the Atlanta chapter of B'nai B'rith, a Jewish organization
dedicated to philanthropy and education. Throughout Frank's ordeal,
the
Atlanta Jewish community stood behind him.
In 1982, Alonzo Mann came forward with the information
that he had seen Jim
Conley dragging Mary Phagan's body. Conley threatened to kill Mann,
who
was a thirteen year-old office boy at the pencil factory at the time.
On
March 11, 1986, more than seventy years after his lynching, the Georgia
Board of Pardons posthumously pardoned Leo Frank. Frank is buried
in
Brooklyn, New York with his
family.
The Leo Frank case created quite an impact on society
that can still be
felt today. In 1915, some of the twenty-five men who lynched Leo Frank
became known as The Knights of Mary Phagan. This group became the
resurrected Ku Klux Klan. One positive outcome of the Frank case was
the
formation of the B'nai B'rith Anti Defamation League which battles
bigotry
to this day. Most importantly, the Frank case became the basis for
a
number of United States Supreme Court rulings that have changed the
standards of trials in America. According to Russel Aiuto of The Crime
Library, Justice Holmes established in 1923 that due process in criminal
trials can be compromised by an inflamed public climate, citing the
Frank trial as a precedent. Later, the Supreme Court also ruled that
perjured testimony was inadmissible, citing the numerous recantations
and
dubious testimonies presented in the Frank case.
For more detailed information on the Leo Frank case,
plus scans of original
documents, letters, articles, and photographs, visit the internet
resource
Georgia Stories: The Leo Frank Case (http://168.28.133.50/peachstar)
or
read Leonard Dinnerstein's dense and detailed investigation in his
book,
The Leo Frank Case.
Sources
Aiuto, Russel. "The Leo Frank Case: The Legacy of the Leo Frank
Case." The
Crime Library (On-line). www.crimelibrary.com/classics/frank/9.htm.
Dinnerstein, Leonard. "The Fate of Leo Frank."
American Heritage,
Vol.47
(Iss)(6), pp 98-107.
Pou, Charles. "The Leo Frank Case" (On-line).
www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gaininfo/leofrank.htm.
Beatrice Fine
Cultural Arts Director
Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City
5801 West 115th Street
Overland Park, KS 66211
phone:913-327-8073
fax: 913327-8040
email: beatricef@jewishkc.org
