Alice + Freda Forever - A Murder in Memphis - Alexis Coe
Category: History
Tags: History, Adults
78 kb/s, In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasnt her crime that shocked the nationit was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiance Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letterand her fathers razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiances throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jailincluding the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of the finest men in
