On July 22, 1899, in Fayette, Missouri, a white mob abducted Frank Embree from officers who were transporting him to trial, and lynched him in front of over 1,000 onlookers. Embree had been arrested a month earlier, accused of assaulting a white girl. Impatient for the legal process, the mob seized him, drove him to the alleged crime scene, and tortured him by stripping him naked and whipping him in an attempt to force a confession. Despite enduring over 100 lashes, Embree maintained his innocence but eventually, in extreme pain, pleaded for a swift death. He was then hanged from a tree. This lynching reflects the brutal methods used to extract coerced confessions from Black people during that era, which were then used to justify such killings. Despite clear photographic evidence of the lynchers, no one was ever arrested or tried for Embree’s death.

The defiant victim of this mob is forced to pose on a buggy for the camera. The handcuffs bite into his inflamed lower arms. He stares directly into the camera lens with undiminished dignity. In the righthand corner, wearing a softbrimmed hat, edging into the camera's view, is a grinning man with a whip. A coarse blanket rests on the buggy seat.

The three cabinet cards depicting the torture and hanging of this man (numbers 38 and 39 and 40) were at one time laced together with a twisted purple thread, so as to unfold like a map.

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