Parade musical begins Kennedy Center run amid rise of antisemitism : NPR

Talia Suskauer and Max Chernin play Lucille and Leo Frank, during the national tour of ParadeAbout a Jewish man wrongly accused of murder in 1913. Parade Completed his tour at Kennedy Center in Washington DC, in the middle of an increase in anti -Semitic hatred.

Joan Marcus

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Joan Marcus

The national tour of ParadeAn award -winning musical on the real lynching of a Jewish man in 1915, arrived at Kennedy Center this week in the middle of the takeover of the institution by President Trump, and an anti -Semitic reaction amplified by a member of the Trump administration.

ParadeWho puts an end to his national tour in Washington, dramatizes the murder of Mary Phagan and the trial of Leo Frank, who would have been wrongly wrong.

Although the case has more than a century, it continues to arouse the controversy of the extreme right, including neonazis, right -wing influencers and the current press secretary of the Ministry of Defense, who denied the accusations of anti -Semitism. As NPR has reported, several eminent officials of the Trump administration have links with anti -Semitic extremists and the negators of the holocaust, even if the White House says it is focused on the fight against anti -Semitic hatred.

Trump transformation of Kennedy Center included installation as president and deleting what he calls “awake political programming”. In response, some artists have canceled their performances on the light site.

Jason Robert Brown, who wrote music and lyrics to Paradeadopted a different approach.

“Parade plays the Kennedy Center in August and we don’t change a word,” he wrote on social networks in February after Trump’s takeover.

In an email at NPR, Brown stressed the importance of playing the show at the Kennedy Center, which he called “America’s Stage”.

“The parade is the story of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank, yes, but more than that, it has always been the story of the hatred currents that run under America,” wrote Brown. “As these currents currently seem to be overflowing with their banks, I am grateful for the opportunity to share our counter-barrage.”

The Leo Frank Trial: A Media Circus

The murder of Mary Phagan and the trial of Leo Frank were one of the shows of the real most notorious crime of the beginning of the 20th century.

Leo Frank

Congress Library

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Congress Library

In the early 1900s, Frank worked as a superintendent of a pencil plant in Atlanta. He was a foreigner on several occasions: a northerner in a southern city, an industrialist in an agricultural state and a Jew in an extremely Christian society.

In 1913, Phagan, 13, who worked at the factory, was found dead in the basement of the building. Prosecutors, based on rare evidence, accused Frank of murder. A black concierge at the factory, Jim Conley, said that he had moved the corpse to the basement at the request of Frank, although his story has changed over time. Frank maintained his innocence.

The subsequent trial has become a media circus, distorted by anti -Semitism, racism and the threat of violence of the crowd. On the day of the verdict, the judge kept Frank and his lawyer far from the courtroom, fearing that an acquittal will trigger the violence of vigilants.

Frank was sentenced and sentenced to death. The Governor of Georgia committed Frank’s sentence in life prison in the midst of increasing evidence.

In response, Tom Watson, a politician and writer of Géorgie supremacist newspapers, invaded Frank as a “Jewish hunter of nice girls” and called his lynching. On August 16, 1915, a group of men, including some eminent local leaders, stormed the prison where Frank was detained, led him to the hometown of Phagan and hanged him to a oak. Pictures of the lynching have been sold in the form of postcards. The authors have never been charged. Watson, who encouraged publicly and then defended the lynching, was elected to the American Senate in 1920.

The incident fueled the renewal of Ku Klux Klan, but also the creation of the anti-deficiency league, the Jewish group of civil rights. Historians have concluded that Frank was the victim of anti -Semitic and probably innocent prejudices. In 1986, the state of Georgia forgave Frank, due to the failure of the state to protect him in detention and to hold his responsible killers.

Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown, in the center, appear during the opening of the opening evening curtain for the revival in 2023 of Parade On Broadway. Uhry wrote the book of the award -winning musical and Brown wrote music and lyrics.

Bruce Glikas / Getty Images

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Bruce Glikas / Getty Images

From history to stage

The playwright Alfred Uhry grew up in Atlanta in the shade of the Franche affair. His family was Jewish and knew the francs, but he said that the history of the lynching was wrapped in mystery.

“The German Jewish community was very small,” Uhry at NPR told an interview. “But when I was born, nobody talked about it at all. I had to go to the library to find it when I was a child. It was very important for me to be able to tell the story.”

Uhry, who won an Oscar and Pulitzer prize for the film and play Drive Miss DaisyThen wrote the 1998 musical comedy Parade On the case of Frank. Although the show won the Tony Awards, Uhry said it was not a major success.

Broadway renewal in 2023 of Parade Make a much more important brand.

“Fortunately, unfortunately, the Zeitgeist was with us that the thing was very timely,” said Uhry.

Part of this Zeitgeist was the rise of anti -Semitic hatred.

In February 2023, a group of white supremacists protested production, distributing leaflets calling Frank a “pedophile”.

“It looked like accessories in the series,” said Uhry.

“The neonazi gaming book” moves to the dominant current

The extremist affirmations on Leo Frank spread beyond the neonazis.

In March 2023 – just a few weeks after the demonstration outside of Parade Making the front page of the national newspapers – the right -wing influencer, Kingsley Wilson, published on social media on the case.

“Leo Frank violated and murdered a 13-year-old girl,” she wrote. “He also tried to frame a black man for his crime. The ADL is demonic.”

(She then published the post to change “Demonic” to “Despicable”, in the history of post on X.)

The following year, she repeated the accusation in response to the commemoration by ADL of the anniversary of Frank’s lynching.

Earlier this year, Wilson joined the Trump administration. She is now a press secretary at the Ministry of Defense.

The American Jewish Committee called Wilson “unfit” for her functions, writing that she shared “the theories of the anti -Semitic plot withdrawn from the Neonazi game book”.

Kingsley Wilson is currently press secretary at the Ministry of Defense. Wilson denied charges that she had promoted anti -Semitism.

Alexander Kubitza / US Department of Defense

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Alexander Kubitza / US Department of Defense

During a tense Senate hearing, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, defended Wilson.

“She does a fantastic job,” said Hegseth. “And any suggestion that me or its others is part of anti -Semitism is a bad characterization that tries to gain political points.”

“Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson has never promoted anti-Semitism,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell in a statement at NPR. “ADL and other left -wing groups as he wrongly attacked the character of Mrs. Wilson because she is a fighter for President Trump and a faithful soldier [sic] of secretary Hegseth. We will continue to reject this false accusation and focus on the delivery of President Trump’s first program to the Ministry of Defense. “”

The Pentagon refused to answer the question of NPR as to the question of whether Wilson holds his publications on social networks on the Frank affair, which remain online.

The far -right influencer and theorist of the conspiracy Candace Owens also promoted anti -Semitic theories on Frank on several episodes of his podcast.

“It seems bad to me,” Owens said in an episode of 2024.

Owens woven the frank affair in a broader anti -Semitic account which alleges that Judaism and the State of Israel are promoting pedophilia.

Oren segal, the main vice-president of the counter-extemism and the information at the ADL, told NPR in an interview that these stories had migrated extremist circles to the dominant current. He noted that the rise of the theory of the Qanon conspiracy, which includes allegations of a global pedophile cycle, helped extremists to recondition the centenary hatred towards Frank for the era of social media.

“More than 100 years later, the anti -Semitic crowd still exists,” said Segal. “They may not be in the streets of Georgia, but they can be on all the social media channels on which we all exist. And therefore in some respects, it is the same hatred, but the scope is much, much further.”

Uhry refused to comment on Wilson’s articles on Frank, saying he wanted the emphasis to remain on the artistic talent of Parade.

The singer-songwriter Brown, in his email at NPR, has established a clear link between the past and the present, noting the contrasting figures of Watson, the white supremacist politician who prompted the lynching of Frank, and the governor of Georgia John Slaton, who has committed Frank’s sentence despite the threats to his own life.

“112 years after the murder of Mary Phagan, the vile racist incentives spit by Tom Watson continue to be repeated by people at the highest level of our government,” he wrote, “and the brave of the Governor’s Slaton remains a powerful example of the risks that we must be ready to take to fight injustice in this country.