Dear Professor Greggory Wroblewski (@greggory_3),
The Southern Poverty Law Center presents itself as a defender against hate, yet it operates as a fear driven fundraising organization. It reshapes the Leo Frank case and uses the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan to generate attention and funding, while targeting Christian groups such as the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA. Its messaging also reinforces divisions across racial and religious lines.
This is a brief response to the SPLC mini documentary that was previously available on YouTube. The film claims that Leo Frank was innocent and that his trial was an antisemitic miscarriage of justice. The historical record does not support that claim. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the evidence in 1914. I have compiled more than 2000 Atlanta newspaper articles, along with trial and appellate records, on my Mary Phagan Kean Legacy Project site.
SPLC: “He didn’t look like one of us.”
Fact check: False.
No contemporary newspaper includes this statement. It appears to be a later invention.
SPLC: “The minister... said, Thank God we finally have a defendant worthy... not just some black factory sweeper, but a rich Jew from Brooklyn.”
Fact check: False.
No reliable source from the period supports this quotation. It appears to have been introduced later.
SPLC: Claims that mobs shouted hostile slogans and that the jury feared lynching.
Fact check: False.
Newspapers and trial transcripts do not support these claims. The trial followed standard procedures, and the conviction was affirmed in 1914.
SPLC: “Governor John Slaton believed the trial was a sham.”
Fact check: False.
He commuted the sentence as an act of clemency and did not overturn the conviction.
SPLC: “Mobs attempted to lynch the governor.”
Fact check: False.
Protests occurred, but there was no attack and no evidence of an attempted lynching.
SPLC: “Nobody would cut it down.”
Fact check: False.
The body was taken down and transported for burial. Contemporary records confirm this.
SPLC: “Little Mary Phagan... the Jew would take her life away.”
Fact check: False.
The original song does not contain this wording. It was added later.
Respectfully,
Mary Phagan Kean
April 24, 2026
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