On April 2, 1899, more than two thousand people participated or watched the execution of Sam Howes in Newman, Georgia. Sam was burned alive. But the worst thing started after. After his death, the crowd pounced on the still hot corpse and began to tear it apart.
A Republican from Springfield, Massachusetts recounted the incident:
dismemberment as follows: even before the execution, Sam lost his ears, fingers and genitals. After death he was butchered, even the bones were crushed into small pieces, even the tree on which the unfortunate man lay was taken apart for souvenirs. His heart and liver were chopped to pieces. Those who could not get a piece of the pay bought them from the more fortunate. Small pieces of bone went for 25 cents, and liver for 10 cents.
This passage is not a fictional story. This is a retelling of the historical analysis of the lynching of black Americans in the United States: The Black Body as Souvenir in American Lynching, from Harvey Young.