Your Peachy Past

Rope Around Neck of Ernest Glenwood, of Dooly County (1919)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 16:33:00 +0000

One where the local newspaper tries to claim he was only "given a sound thrashing."

Not buying it.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Saturday, 4 October 1919 - pg. 3 [via GenealogyBank]

FIND LOST NEGRO IN RIVER

Rope Around Neck of Ernest Glenwood, of Dooly County.
AMERICUS, Oct. 3. -- Mystery surrounding the disappearance of Ernest Glenwood, a negro, living near Lily, in Dooly county, was cleared up yesterday when his body was found in the Flint river and recovered by Tom Shirer, a white fisherman. Glenwood disappeared September 22, when, taken in custody by three masked men, and carried into the woods at night. John Graham, another negro, was with Glenwood when he was seized and carried off, but Graham was not molested.

It was charged that Glenwood had been circulating improper propaganda among Dooly county negroes, and it is believed he was given a sound thrashing by citizens who seized him and afterward released. How he came to meet death in the river is a mystery, although when found, the body had a rope about the neck, while a stout cord was tied around the right wrist. Several other negroes implicated in the circulation of the objectionable propaganda, were first whipped and then ordered to leave the county, since which time none of them have been heard from.

W. Fitzhugh Brundage wrote about this incident in Lynching in the New South (1993), citing a 4 October 1919 Atlanta Constitution (Georgia) news article:

Blacks who showed insufficient subservience to racial protocol in myriad ways suffered at the hands of small mobs...In September 1919, a mob lynched Ernest Glenwood, a farmhand in Dooly County, Georgia, for circulating "propaganda." The black man, who had been trying to organize black workers to refuse to work for 60 cents a day, was overpowered by three white men. They tied his arms together, forced him to jump into a river, and then riddled his body with bullets as he struggled for air.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the supposed criminal, as well as those committed on the supposed criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

Another Lynching in Georgia: John Ware was Strung Up in 1904 Franklin County

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 23:02:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of John Ware is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. Following is what Mr. Brundage wrote regarding labor disputes between the races and the lynching of John Ware specifically:

Labor disputes between blacks and whites, which routinely bred frustration, suspicion, and anger on both sides of the color line, were sometimes fought out to bloody conclusions, thus weaving a thread of violence into southern labor relations...Because a defense of white authority, and conversely a challenge to that authority, were never far beneath the surface of any labor dispute involving whites and blacks, more than just economic motives could be at work in both the murder of a white planter by a tenant and the subsequent lynching of the tenant.

The black man who openly challenged his white employer was uncommon; had he not been, the racial hierarchy and the system of labor at its foundation would have been jeopardized. But some did challenge...When John Ware, a tenant farmer in Franklin County, Georgia, refused to sell his cotton to the merchant of his landlord's choice in 1904, the two men began to fight and the black man killed the planter...[T]he black man's stand led to his swift execution by a mob. These lynchings drove home to blacks the peril of challenging their employers; as one white planter curtly explained, "when [an African American] gets ideas, the best thing to do is to get him under ground as quick as possible."

Newspaper Account of the Lynching of John Ware

19 September 1904 Idaho Statesman

Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)
19 September 1904 - pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

ANOTHER LYNCHING IN GEORGIA.

John Ware Strung Up in Franklin County for Fatally Shooting a Young White Man, C. Y. Daniel.
Atlanta, Sept. 18. -- A special to The Constitution from Royston, Ga., says:

Judge Lynch held court in Franklin county to-day, and as a result the riddred [sic] body of John Ware, a negro, is swinging from the limb of a tree between here and Carnesville. Ware was done to death by a mob for fatally shooting C. Y. Daniel, a son of George Daniel, of Danielsville, to-day. Young Daniel and the negro had some words over a trivial matter. It is said the negro, becoming greatly enraged and saying that no white man should run over him, drew a pistol and shot Daniel, the bullet inflicting a wound that will prove fatal.

The news of the shooting quickly spread and a crowd began gathering, many leaving church to join in the chase for the negro. The negro was captured early in the afternoon and while being hurried to Carnesville by the sheriff, was overtaken by the mob. The negro was taken from the sheriff and deputies, seated on a horse, a noose fitted about his neck and the other end tied to a limb. The horse was then struck a sharp blow and dashed away, leaving the negro swinging to the limb. Half a hundred shots rang out and the swaying body was riddled. The corpse was left hanging by the mob.

Per a short article in the 20 September 1904 Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama), Georgia's Governor Joseph M. Terrell took "a firm stand against lynching by offering a reward of $250 each for the arrest and conviction of any of the men who took part in the lynching of John Ware, the negro hanged by a mob in Franklin County..."

It Didn't Work.

Ocala Banner (Florida)
14 October 1904 [via GenealogyBank]

LYNCHERS NOT INDICTED.

Franklin County Jury Could Find No Evidence.
Atlanta, Oct. 13. -- The presentments of the Franklin county grand jury contain an extensive report of the investigation into the lynching of the negro John Ware, made with the view of indicting the lynchers, as recommended by Judge Russell in his charge to the grand jury.

Solicitor C. H. Band, of the western circuit, took a very active part in the investigations and in cross examining the witnesses summoned to appear before the grand jury. His best efforts, however, and those of the members of the grand jury, were unavailing since no evidence was adduced on which to issue an indictment.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

Daniel Odwell Lynched a Year Removed from Alleged Crime (Or was it Henry Barnes?)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 10:30:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of Daniel Odwell is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. Following excerpt from the latter:

Private mobs, unlike terrorist mobs, usually murdered victims who were already in legal custody. In Georgia between 1880 and 1930, 80 percent of the victims of private mobs were taken from law officers...Without question, local law officers, whether through woeful incompetence or complicity, often aided the work of the mobs.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Friday, 17 September 1886 - pg. 4 [via GenealogyBank]

LYNCHED AFTER A YEAR.

DANIEL ODWELL, A YOUNG NEGRO, LYNCHED YESTERDAY.

A Year ago He Assaulted a White Girl Eleven Years Old -- Arrested Wednesday -- On the Way to Jail He was Taken and Hanged.

MILLEN, September 16. -- About a year ago, Daniel Odwell, a negro, twenty-six years old, raped a white girl, aged eleven years, seven miles from here. He was apprehended yesterday, committed to the Sylvania jail this morning, in charge of Constable D. M. Brinson. A party of men overtook him two miles out, hung the negro, and riddled his body.

Another report is that the darky was burned.

IS HE THE SAME MAN?
By Associated Press.
AUGUSTA, GA., September 16. -- Henry Barnes, colored, was lynched to-day at Rogers' Station on the Central railroad. A party of masked men did the lynching. Barnes was taken from a train near Millen and riddled with bullets.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

The Ty-Ty Tragedy: Ed Henderson was Lynched for the Usual Crime in 1899

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 19:41:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of Ed Henderson is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. Following excerpt from the latter:

...Posses, which shared with mass mobs broad communal participation and support, claimed more lives in southern Georgia than in any other region of the state...Moreover, the tradition of man-hunting became for white men a welcome opportunity to demonstrate their civic commitment in a region where independence and isolation otherwise were the rule. Whites had long boasted that southern Georgia was "white man's country," and the pervasiveness of racial violence by mass mobs and posses demonstrated that large numbers of whites were only too ready to resort to violence in order to maintain the boast.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Friday, 15 September 1899 - pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

THE TY-TY TRAGEDY

How Negro Brutes Attacked and Outraged the Woman.

CITIZENS TO RESCUE

THEY RUSHED IN FROM ALL DIRECTIONS TO AVENGE.

It Has Been Reported That All the Negroes Were Backing up the Rapists -- Old Man Boynton's Supposed Treachery -- Lynching of One of Wretches.

TY TY, Ga., Sept. 14. -- This morning a frightened and humiliated family breathe more freely, for they feel that at least one of the brutes who deliberately blighted their happiness and flushed the cheek with shame is no longer a terror to the helpless and unsuspecting.

The bare facts that an outrage upon a defenseless woman has been committed, that several negroes have been arrested and that one has been identified and hanged, have already gone out to the world, but there are numerous details and attendant circumstances which render the event unique. A full account, therefore, would be of interest to the public.

As already chronicled, the rape was committed on Monday afternoon at Ty Ty. The unfortunate woman is 22 years old and lives with her father, Mr. Johnson. Her name was Jennie Johnson. She married a man named Ash, but she has been a widow something more than a year.

On last Monday afternoon she and her little brother, about 10 years old, and not her little son, as some of the dispatches have stated, were picking cotton in a field within the corporate limits of the town. They were within less than a quarter of a mile of the depot and quietly at work, when they were both suddenly surprised by two negroes attacking her from behind. She was in a stooping posture when one of them caught her by the shoulders, pulled her backward and began choking her. She and the little boy began screaming. The negroes demanded them to hush or they would kill them. But almost the instant of the attack the boy ran toward the depot crying for help. Before he reached the depot he met his father going to the rescue and said: "Pa, two negroes are down yonder killing sister." Mr. Johnson said: "Who are they?" The boy replied: "One of them is the negro that was around here this morning with old Henry Boynton, but I don't know the other one."

Before Mr. Johnson could get a gun and reach the spot the negro who was choking Mrs. Ash succeeded in executing his devilish design, while the other negro held her feet.

The negroes, hearing Mr. Johnson and the boy coming, released Mrs. Ash before the negro who held her feet could carry out his intention to treat her as the other had done, and they both escaped into a branch close at hand.

Mrs. Ash said that the negro who held her feet was a short, chunky black negro, with thick lips and bushy hair, and that he wore an old brown hat and blue overalls, with apron front supported by suspenders. The negro who assaulted her was tall and black, but not so dark as the other, and wore a blue-checked shirt and a broad-brimmed black hat, turned up behind.

A large posse of men were soon in pursuit of the negroes, and later the service of hounds was secured, but they were young and untrained and were really of little service.

Quite a number of negroes were carried before Mrs. Ash from time to time. Among them were two who answered fairly well the description of the tall negro. She said as each was presented that he looked very much like the one, but the little boy persisted that he was not the man.

Yesterday morning the negro who was lynched was arrested at Tifton while working at Mr. Ridgen's gin. He was carried to Ty Ty yesterday afternoon and as soon as he made his appearance in the town the little Johnsonu [sic] boy declared emphatically that he was the negro who assaulted his sister. The citizens of the town knew him to have been with old Henry Boynton all the morning of the day of the crime. He was carried before Mrs. Ash, who instantly identified him, although he wore different clothes and hat from those described above.

A messenger was sent from Tifton with the clothes and hat which he wore when he reached Tifton from Ty Ty on the day of the crime. Mrs. Ash recognized them at once. The broad black hat, from having been worn that way, stood turned up behind. When it was presented to Mrs. Ash the turned up part was held out straight and she was asked if that was the hat worn by her assailant. She replied:

"That's exactly like it; only his was turned up behind."

This said, the man holding the hat removed his hand, and the part held by him assumed its former turned-up position.

There were about 100 men in Ty Ty, all heavily armed with repeating rifles, shotguns and pistols. They were very cautious, and without the slightest friction or discord were a unit in favor of not hurting any innocent negro, and, as already stated, several were turned loose unharmed. But the difference of carriage and countenance presented by the negro lynched and that of the other negroes carried before Mrs. Ash was noticeable in the extreme. He stoutly declared his innocence, but made a dozen conflicting statements, all placing him in a very awkward light.

Soon after the crime was committed the negro's sister bought three tickets to Tifton, but there was only one negro with her. Just as the train was pulling out her brother came hurriedly up and boarded the train. His name, I have not yet stated, was Ed. Henderson. His uncle, old Henry Boynton, seemed very officious in helping the white people to hunt the guilty negroes, and told a great tale about seeing two negroes going across the field and hiding in a barn, and presently it was found that Henry had disappeared from the scene. The people the decided that his feigned help was only for a decoy until the guilty parties could get a good start.

Ed. Henderson, who was lynched, was not suspected as the guilty party until the day after the crime. This being so, he was asked why he left as he did, his sister getting the ticket for him, and he coming in at the last moment. He answered: "Well, I had heard that some devilment had been done, and old man Henry dent [sic] and told me that the white folks was done and after me with guns and things, and I had better skip out."

Just after dark Wednesday night, the night of the lynching, several circumstances had accumulated to the effect that the citizens suspected the negroes were massing themselves in a thicket in the edge of town. Immediately Tifton, Sylvester, Sumner and Poulan were notified. In response to the message a special train from Tifton carried forty-three men, and others went from there by private conveyance. An east-bound through freight was held up at Sylvester and seventeen men boarded it for Ty Ty, afterwards taking as many more from Sumner and Poulan. Before 11 o'clock more than two hundred cool, sober, sensible, determined men, armed to the teeth, were congregated on the streets of Ty Ty.

About 12 o'clock the crowd moved away from the depot, and later they came back. As the special train went back to Tifton there could be seen through the radiating beams thrown out from the engine's headlight the ghastly figure of a condemned rapist dangling twenty feet in the air suspended from the cross beam of a telegraph pole 300 yards from the depot.

The negro was allowed to pray before he was hanged. In the prayer he said that he was going to hell or heaven, one of the other, but he didn't know which.

On the telegraph pole from which he was suspended was tacked a card bearing this inscription: "Given a fair trial and found guilty. Negroes must keep their hands off white women."

The quiet, concerted action and perfect order of the crowd was remarkable. Every man was sober, not a shot was fired or a shout uttered. Nothing was heard above a conversational tone. A protracted meeting was being held at the white Methodist church on the opposite side of the street from the home of Mr. Johnson, where the prostrated woman lay, and from dark until all were gon e the entire town was as quiet as a Sabbath morning, and some of the words of the preacher could be understood by men in the crowd.

The west-bound passenger train arrived at Ty Ty a little after 1 o'clock, after the lynching had occurred, and on it came an additional force of men from Willacoochee. They had heard that trouble with the negroes was expected and they seized the opportunity to give help.

Mr. Johnson, the father of the unfortunate woman, has lived with his family for sixteen years in Worth county, and during the last six years of that time he has lived in Ty Ty. He and his family are poor, but honorable. The best people of Ty Ty say that nought has ever been charged against the character of any member of the family. And when brutal negroes dare to treat them this it is enough to "turn the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to fire."

Everything is quiet in Ty Ty this morning and the search for the other negro will be continued. Information has been received that a negro from Worth county and answering the description of the negro wanted is in jail in Albany.

Before Ed Henderson was hanged he said that old Henry Boynton committed the rape himself, but this is not believed, for he is known to Mrs. Ash and her little brother, and they do not accept this statement.

After old Henry slipped off from Ty Ty he was caught up at Sumner and was being brought back. He told such a smooth tale that he was released, so some say; but others say that he attempted to jump from the buggy in which he was being carried and fell and broke his neck. This latter statement is pretty generally doubted. The fact remains, however, that old Henry is not to be found around Ty Ty.

The people of this section are quiet, law-abiding, home-loving people, and will protect the virtue of their women so long as blood courses in their veins.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

Storming a Negro Cabin: Masked Mob Shot Adam Mallard Down with a Load of Buckshot in 1887

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 10:58:00 +0000

When searching for newspaper articles about the 1887 murderous mob violence toward Adam Mallard, I found a few in periodicals from New York, Indiana, and (of course) Georgia. The one transcribed below seems to be the fullest account, coming from a local Cuthbert, Randolph County, Georgia source.

Cuthbert Enterprise and Appeal (Georgia)
15 September 1887 [via Georgia Historic Newspapers]

Assassination -- An Old Negro Shot by an Armed Mob.
Yesterday morning about 2 o'clock a mob armed with pistols and shot guns, went to the house of Adam Mallard, an old negro man living about five miles from town, on Mr. Seab Shepherd's plantation and calling to the occupants within demanded the three sons of old Adam, stating that they had warrants for their arrest. The old man answered them to the effect that two of the boys were not in the house, and that the third, Ransom, was present, but unable to come out, owing to a gunshot wound, received recently in a difficulty. It seems that the other two sons of old Adam, having previous warning of the approach of the mob, sought shelter near the house under a wide-spreading fig bush. They were young men, tenants on Mr. Shepherd's farm. Nothing could be done or said, however to satisfy the armed party and they began firing into the rear of the house with shot guns loaded with buckshot, riddling the weather boarding and slightly wounding one of the women inside in the leg. Adam went out about this time at the front door and started off in the direction of Mr. Shepherd's house, which was about three quarters of a mile away. When about thirty steps from the cabin he was fired upon and a load of buckshot lodged in his right side and breast, which doubtless killed him instantly. When the old man was shot the two men under the fig bush sprang from their hiding place and started in a run across a cotton field in the rear of the house. This was a signal for another volley from the mob. While they were endeavoring to kill the fugitives the wounded negro in the house went out the back way and his under a work bench, near the house. After daylight one of the negroes who ran off through the field before the hot shot of the assassins, returned home with a slight scalp wound made by a pistol ball. The other had not been heard from up to noon yesterday, and it was the prevalent idea that he was mortally wounded the night before, and had died in the woods[.] Mr. Shepherd came to town yesterday and reported the occurrence to the proper authorities. Coroner Coleman was not long in reaching the seat of battle and after a lengthy hearing from the family of the deceased, the jury rendered a verdict of killing by gun shot wounds in the hands of an unknown party, or parties, and that the same was murder. Negroes who testified before the jury did not state positively that any member of the mob was recognized by them. It was dark, and impossible to distinguish a white man from a negro at any distance. Why such a tragedy should have been enacted in this community, heretofore noted for its quiet, and law abiding citizens, is simply conjecture. It is an occurrence greatly to be deprecated by every good citizen.

For the 1880 U.S. Federal census, Adam (age 70) and family were residing in Quitman County, a western neighbor of Randolph in south Georgia. He was listed with wife Cordelia, daughter Emma, and three boys: Ransom (age 19), Allan (age 18), and David (age 15). The first two were noted as sons of Adam, and the last a grandson.

Three years after witnessing the melee detailed above, Ransom married Sarah "Sallie" Johnson on 1 September 1890 in Macon County, Georgia. By 1900, the couple was residing at 975 Jackson Street in Americus, Sumter County, Georgia with son Morris. By 1910, there was an additional son named Richard.

At the time of the murder, Allan/Allen had been married less than eight months. He and Mattie Brown -- "free persons of color" -- were wed January 1887 at Randolph County. By 1910, the couple was in Terrell County, Georgia.

David "Dave" Mallard and wife Matilda were in Early County, Georgia by 1910 -- the parents of fourteen children. Dave's "sudden death" came on 11 August 1926 at Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia. According to his death certificate, Dave's parents were Bill and Marie Diled or Dileal. Though Marie's maiden name of Mallard was not provided, the 1870 U.S. Federal census shows patriarch Adam Mallard did have a daughter named Marie. So David being Adam's grandson seems to fit.

(Note: Dave's wife Matilda died ten years later and was buried in Riverside Cemetery at Albany.)

If these three boys/men were the ones at Adam's house in 1887, I suggest all survived. Unless there was another son present (relation as described in the news article), no man "under the fig bush" was "mortally wounded" and "died in the woods."

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

Charles Gibson had Been Hunted All Day by a Mob (in 1897)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 17:46:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of Charles Gibson is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.

Columbus Daily Enquirer (Georgia)
Tuesday, 14 September 1897 - pg. 4 [via GenealogyBank]

MISS CHAPMAN AVENGED.

Her Assailant Shot and Hung Near Macon.

Macon, Ga., Sept. 13. – The assault committed on Miss Sallie Chapman in her bed room has been avenged.

Charles Gibson, a negro about 28 years of age, made a dying confession of the crime last night and was immediately afterwards hanged to a nearby tree.

Gibson was shot down by the deputy sheriffs in the swamp about two miles from the city. He had been hunted all day by a mob, and, though wounded in the shoulder, would probably have escaped under cover of darkness had he not been discovered by the posse just as night was setting in.

Yesterday morning Gibson shot and killed another negro, Jim Smith, as the result of an altercation which rumor said arose over the shoes that were stolen from Miss Chapman's room on the morning of the horrible assault. The cause of the quarrel that led up to the killing of Smith has not, however, been positively confirmed. Smith was instantly killed.

The report of the pistol aroused the neighborhood on Elm street and Gibson, who at once ran, was shot at several times. Mr. George Hyster shot his hat off with a Winchester rifle ball, but at this point the negro escaped.

He was followed in his flight to the swamp by a crowd that gathered in numbers as it went. Deputy Hines Millnors was in the lead. He kept doggedly on Gibson's trail and alone followed him into the swamp. Once he got a good shot at him and hit him in the shoulder. This was at about 10 o'clock.

A negro living close by was questioned and he directed them to the place close to which he said Gibson was lying hid.

A line was formed and the posse swept through the swamp. Young Henley Napier, on horseback, was ahead. He rode along a ditch and as he did so Police Officer Pierce saw Gibson lying there. He called to Napier to look out, and as he did so Gibson arose and fired at Napier, missing him. He then turned and opened fire on Deputy Sheriff Jobson and the firing became general. Gibson fired four shots and was brought down by a bullet from Jobson's pistol, which struck him in the side.

It was a fatal shot. The man, gasping for breath, was surrounded and one of the crowd said:

"You are going to h—l anyhow, and you don't want to go with a lie on your lips. Did you got into Miss Sallie Chapman's bedroom and assault her?"

It was a chance question, though suspicion pointed to the negro on account of the finding of the shoes which were taken from the house, and which had been traced to the house of a woman named Lou Daniels, with whom Gibson has been living. The negro hesitated when asked the question, and then said:

"Yes, boss, I done it."

Sheriff Westcott had gone to a nearby house to get a wagon in which to take the wounded man to town. The mob of 30 or 40 men, hearing of the confession, and hearing it repeated again and again, kuickly [sic] secured a plow line and the dying man was strung up to a tree. He hung there about three minutes and Sheriff Westcott returning, cut him down. He lived for about five minutes afterwards.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

When an Event Involving My Relative Sparked a Lynching (Part III)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 06:30:00 +0000

[Part I is here.] [Part II is here.]

Recently, I have been studying and compiling information about lynchings in Georgia. So when I came across the article about my second cousin, James Francis Hammock, he was actually not the subject of my search. The victim of the mob violence, John Shake, was.

It most likely was on the second read-through of the article that I made the connection. I distinctly remember my jaw dropping, and a small amount of anxiety creeping up within me. Later, a sense of relief came in a wave when I realized J. F. Hammock was not directly involved in the brutal hanging of John Shake. Next came the wondering of how my cousin felt about what happened. The genealogist side took over, and I got lucky.

DEPLORES LYNCHING.
Notwithstanding Victim Was Negro Who Shot Him.
Macon, Ga., July 28. – G. [sic] F. Hammock, a Dunbar merchant who is in the hospital here, deplores the lynching Sunday of John Shake, a negro, by a Houston county mob for shooting Hammock, while robbing his store.
Hammock will recover.
[News-Press (Ft. Myers, Florida) – 28 July 1913 – via Newspapers.com]

I won't lie. Finding this blurb in the newspaper made me feel better. But, truth be told, I can't really know for sure how genuine the comment was. The clipping is simply something to be added to the whole body of research.

I chose not to dissect the original article detailing the alleged crime, as I believe knowing that it all happened in 1913 Georgia is enough. If you are unsure of my meaning of this, may I humbly suggest the time period and environment is definitely worthy of study. My opinion of the alleged criminality of John Shake is this: maybe the decision to shoot at Hammock was one of opportunity. If John Shake was truly caught trying to rob the store, he likely saw no way out. He might have felt, believed, known, that his life was over no matter what he did. So his best option was to try to escape the untenable situation.

What can I do to help the cause? "Tell the world the facts."

I've been reading some of the brave work done by anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett. So much – yet too much for this space – is worth quoting. Hopefully the following will be sufficient:

The Negro does not claim that all of the one thousand black men, women and children, who have been hanged, shot and burned alive during the past ten years, were innocent of the charges made against them…
But we do insist that the punishment is not the same for both classes of criminals. In lynching, opportunity is not given the Negro to defend himself against the unsupported accusations of white men and women. The word of the accuser is held to be true and the excited bloodthirsty mob demands that the rule of law be reversed and instead of proving the accused to be guilty, the victim of their hate and revenge must prove himself innocent. No evidence he can offer will satisfy the mob; he is bound hand and foot and swung to eternity. Then to excuse its infamy, the mob almost invariably reports the monstrous falsehood that its victim made a full confession before he was hanged.

Does any of this matter today? Should it matter at all?

I can only answer those questions for myself: yes, it matters, and it should. Some may argue I'm applying presentism, interpreting past events in terms of modern values. I respectfully disagree.

Slavery had been abolished with the ratification of the 13th amendment almost 48 years prior to the lynching of John Shake. African Americans quickly proved they could be an integral part of society; they ran businesses and held public office during Reconstruction. But southern states chose to enact harsh laws that enforced segregation and rolled back many of the meager freedoms African Americans had gained.

The law of the land had been circumvented. Because African Americans had gotten too "uppity," mobs of people felt it necessary to teach them their place. On a constant basis, and to the death.

This is not only wrong now, it was wrong then.

A Promise Kept

I've said my piece regarding the lynching of John Shake and my cousin's part in it, but I promised to return to the map shared in the first post. Here it is again:

Even though I wasn't around in 1913, and John wasn't around when I grew up, I look at this map and see our crossed paths.

I was born in Wellston, though the name was changed to Warner Robins before my birth. The Houston Medical Center stands roughly seven miles from the Dunbar Community. Before I left my hometown a few years ago, I was living at Centerville – my apartment being roughly four miles from the Dunbar Community.

I've been to the swampy, muddy banks of the Ocmulgee River. I can picture the scene in my mind. The map above is dated 1933, but you have to believe those same pathways existed twenty years before.

I'll bet I've walked where those bloodhounds and groups of men – swelling to the number of 100 – feverishly searched and hunted for their prey. I might have even stood on the once blood-soaked ground below where John Shake took his last breath. This research experience, some 105 years after the fact, hit home for me.

Post (Post?) Script

It just so happens I am finishing this post on the 150th anniversary of the birth of W. E. B. Du Bois. A link to an article written by Ibram X. Kendi came with my Twitter feed this morning. The article is entitled The Soul of W. E. B. Du Bois, and it's about Du Bois's famous collection of essays called The Souls of Black Folk. I confess to having never read this collection of Du Bois writings, but Kendi's article convinced me to do so. The Souls of Black Folk is now waiting on my kindle. A portion of The Soul of W. E. B. Du Bois combines words penned by Du Bois and Kendi:

“Let there spring, Gentle One, from out its leaves vigor of thought and thoughtful deep to reap the harvest wonderful,” Du Bois prayed at the end of Souls, in the section he called an afterthought. “Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is a mockery and a snare.” Looking at the harvest of black thought since Souls, his prayers have been answered. But looking at our drear days when human unity remains a farce, his prayers have yet to be answered.

When an Event Involving My Relative Sparked a Lynching (Part II)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 06:30:00 +0000

[Part I is here.]

So, who was J. F. Hammock? And given the use of initials, am I sure this was my relative?

James Francis "Jinks" Hammock was born 6 February 1877 in Houston County, Georgia to William Warren Peavy (1849-1899) and Scynthia A. Hammock (1854-1905). A year after Jinks was born, for reasons that would require telling a whole other story, he was being raised by his maternal grandparents. So James Francis Peavy became James Francis Hammock.

The Peavys of that area of Houston (later Peach) County called the town of Byron home. This was not far from the community of Dunbar, where the lynching of John Shake took place. Even on a present-day map, you can see Peavy Road and Dunbar Road are less than four miles from each other.

Census records for 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930, and 1940 place J. F. Hammock in Militia District 771 (locally known as Upper Fifth), which contained the community of Dunbar. It was also noted on the 1920 census that he was residing on a farm on Dunbar Road.

A December 1909 obituary dedicated to the memory of his grandmother Sarah Hammock, specifically placed J. F. at the community of Dunbar.

James Francis Hammock married Minnie Lewis Avant on 29 July 1910. The couple had daughter Sara nearly one year later. This "wife and little daughter" family of J. F. follows exactly the narrative of the Macon Telegraph article.

If this wasn't enough to convince me the J. F. Hammock in the article about the lynching of John Shake was my second cousin James Francis, the document that would was his World War I Draft Registration (via FamilySearch). In the space for notes to be made about the physical description of James Francis Hammock was this: Lame arm from gun shot wound. The card was dated September 1918, five years after the lynching of John Shake.

Just to button things up, James Francis Hammock died 18 January 1960, just a month after his wife. The couple was buried at the Liberty Methodist Church graveyard in the Walden community of Bibb County, Georgia (where Minnie was from). The church also was where James and Minnie were married.

Now, who was John Shake?

It truly bothers me greatly to admit I have no clue. I have searched for him in census records from 1870 to 1910 in Houston and surrounding counties in Georgia. Strange not to find a single mention of a man who supposedly was born around 1863 and lived in the same area all his life (or at least about 50 years, it was claimed). I'm inclined to think the news articles were wildly inaccurate regarding this man who had his life taken from him in 1913. Given he was a black man in the Jim Crow South, I guess it should be expected.

Conversely, I was able to locate no fewer than 19 records (including census, newspaper, military, cemetery, and marriage) regarding cousin James without leaving my home! The dichotomy between the lives of the two men brought together at that single point in time cannot be overstated.

To be clear, according to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of John Shake is referenced in the Tuskegee University Archives database, in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930, and in Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. But we may never know if the original newspaper source was faulty.

One more tomorrow. [Go to Part III.]

When an Event Involving My Relative Sparked a Lynching (Part I)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:05:00 +0000

I've been thinking about how to write this series of posts for days. Sitting here now, I'm still unsure what the final product will be.

So here we go. The short of it is this:

On a summer night in 1913, my second cousin caught a supposed burglar attempting to rob his store at Dunbar, Houston County, Georgia. The apparent perpetrator fired a gun at my cousin, wounding him in two places. Afterwards the shooter fled the scene. Neighbors came to the aid of my cousin, who was shortly thereafter taken to a hospital in the next county over. A large group of men gathered and set out to find the person they believed attempted murder. After some hours, they caught their man. Upon returning to the community where the crime was committed, the group hung the crook and filled his body with bullets.

That is how I interpreted the published newspaper accounts that contemporaneously described the event. As you can see, the alleged crime committed by the alleged criminal escalated from attempted burglary to attempted murder in no time flat.

What follows next is a transcription of the first newspaper article I read, in its entirety. See if you get the same out of it that I did. I'm including a map of some pertinent places mentioned in the article, and I will elaborate on what those locales mean to me in a later post.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Monday, 28 July 1913 - pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank's Newspaper Archive]

LYNCH NEGRO WHO FIRES ON MERCHANT
Houston Posse Is Rewarded After All-Day Search.
STRUNG UP AT DUNBAR
John Shake Had Shot J. F. Hammock.
CAUGHT ROBBING STORE
When Dunbar Merchant Interrupted Negro Burglar at His Work, Latter Fires On Him, Wounding Him in Wrist And Breast -- 100 Men Take Up Chase.
Eighteen hours after he had shot and seriously wounded J. F. Hammock, a merchant at Dunbar, thirteen miles south of Macon, in Houston county, when interrupted while in the act of robbing the store of Hanson and Hammock, John Shake, a fifty-year-old negro, was run down by a posse composed of one hundred Houston county men and lynched yesterday afternoon about 5 o'clock, a short distance from Dunbar. His body was strung up to a tree and was riddled with bullets.
J. F. Hammock, who was shot by the negro, is not fatally hurt, though at Williams sanitarium, in this city, last night it was stated he was weak from loss of blood and had suffered considerably from the shock. The charge from a shot gun had struck him on the left wrist, fracturing the bones and had also lodged in the breast, though the latter wound is not thought to be serious.
Hears Noise at Store.
It was about 11 o'clock Saturday night, an hour after the store at Dunbar had been closed, that Mr. Hammock, who lives with his wife and little daughter, three hundred yards from the store, heard a noise like someone breaking into the store. Two or three previous attempts having recently been made to burglarize the store, Mr. Hammock decided to investigate and, slipping up to the building, he saw a man inside.
"Come out of there; I have you," Mr. Hammock shouted, but the negro did not come as directed. Instead he secured a shotgun from inside the store and, searching about, found some shells with which to load the weapon. Then he appeared in the doorway and fired. Mr. Hammock fell to the ground wounded, and the negro fled.
Recognizes the Negro.
Mrs. Hammock, who heard the shot, quickly ran to her husband's assistance and called for aid. Mr. Hammock had recognized the negro as John Shake, a man about 50 years of age, who had lived around Dunbar practically all of his life and who had been under suspicion for some time as the party who had attempted to rob the store before.
A short time after the shooting a posse was formed and the search for the negro began. During the day the posse was augmented by others until it finally numbered one hundred men, all bent on running the negro down and avenging the attempt on the life of their friend and neighbor. The posse was divided into small groups of men, who were strung out across the county. Finally about 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon the negro was found in a swamp on the river bank, near Wellston, about 10 miles below Dunbar. The negro was captured and brought back to Dunbar, arriving there about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. He confessed that it was he who had done the shooting and without further ado he was strung up.
Wounded Man Brought Here.
While the posse had gone in pursuit of the negro, a call was sent to Macon for L. H. Burghard's ambulance and the injured man was brought to the Williams' sanitarium for medical attention, reaching this city at 4 o'clock yesterday morning.
Mr. Hammock is one of the best known men of Houston county, and has a wife and little daughter. The shooting aroused his friends to a high pitch of indignation.

Another article from another Georgia city's newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle, was published under this headline:

STRING HIM UP IN THE VERY HEART OF NEGRO SETTLEMENT: Angry Georgia Mob Riddles Body of Black Who Shot Down Merchant Near Macon.

The same tale is basically told, with the addition that bloodhounds were used to track John Shake, and he was found in neck-deep swamp water.

An article out of Florida's Miami Herald began this way:

CHASED WITH BLOODHOUNDS, THEN HANGED

Fate of Negro Thief Who Mortally Wounded J. F. Hammock of Dunbar, Ga.

NEGRO WAS CAUGHT ROBBING STORE, AND RATHER THAN BE CAUGHT EMPTIED A SHOTGUN INTO HAMMOCK'S BODY -- HAMMOCK IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION IN MACON HOSPITAL.

Finally, the Asheville Citizen-Times of North Carolina published under this brazen falsehood:

GEORGIANS LYNCH NEGRO WHO KILLED A MERCHANT

The second to last line of the article did admit, "It is thought he [Hammock] will recover."

As you ponder the plight of John Shake, I leave you (for now) with this cautionary quote from Fitzhugh Brundage, author of Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930 --

For all of the information that newspaper accounts provide, their serious limitations also must be recognized. Because the majority of extant newspapers from the period are white newspapers, they reflect the harsh racial attitudes of the day, and their accounts of lynchings, the alleged crimes that prompted lynchings, and the portrayals of mob victims must be treated with great caution…[W]hite descriptions of both the alleged offenses and the character of lynching victims cannot be accepted without question.

Be back tomorrow. [Go to Part II.]

Usual Crime, Usual Penalty: the Lynching of Jack Hilsman

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 21:41:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of Jack Hilsman is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Wednesday, 25 July 1900 [via GenealogyBank]

THE USUAL CRIME; USUAL PENALTY

Jack Hilsman Was Lynched at Knoxville.

ASSAULTED A GIRL

WAS TO BE BROUGHT TO MACON JAIL

Had Been Identified By the Young Lady and By a Negro Woman Who Saw Him Fleeing From the House – Betrayed His Employer's Confidence.

Jack Hilsman, the 25-year-old negro who was confined in Macon's jail last week for safe keeping, but who was taken to Knoxville and given a commitment hearing Monday on the charge of assault, was lynched Monday night, having been taken from the Crawford county officers by a number of the neighbors of the farmer whose daughter was the object of the negro's attack.

The negro had been committed to jail by Justice K. P. Lowe of Knoxville, and was to have been brought back to Macon yesterday for safe-keeping.

The negro's crime occurred last Thursday at Musella, a small village about twelve miles from Knoxville. The negro had been employed on the plantation of Mr. James Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was away from the residence on Thursday and the young lady was alone in the house, her two sisters being engaged at the dairy, some distance away. The negro discovered these facts and he entered the house. He seized the young lady, but before he could overpower her she made such outcries as to attract the attention of her sisters, and others nearby. The brute ran away, but a posse was hastily formed, and he was pursued and caught within a few hours.

He was brought to Macon, it being about as near to this place as to Knoxville, but he was taken to Knoxville for a commitment hearing on Monday. He stoutly denied his guilt, but he was identified by the young lady and by a negro woman who saw him running from the house, and he was sentenced to jail. It was not known that he was in any danger of being lynched, as only four men from the neighborhood of Musella were noticed about the court house at Knoxville during or just after the trial. The sheriff and his deputies were taking the negro to the jail, after the court had decided that he was probably guilty as charged, and on the way the four men from Mr. Mitchell's neighborhood rushed in and sought to take charge of the prisoner. They were quickly repulsed.

The incident caused great excitement, however, and as the posse moved on toward the jail a considerable crowd gathered. It seems that there were in and about the town, hidden out, a large number of people from the district in which the crime had been committed. Some had been just out of town, in the woods, it is understood, and when the trouble began they all rushed in and joined the gathering mob. Before the posse had gotten to the jail quite a formidable crowd had gathered, and they made an assault on the posse. After a determined scuffle, the crowd overpowered the guards and got the prisoner. Not a shot was fired.

The crowd seemed to have formed its plans fully beforehand. They carried Hilsman out to a negro settlement about half a mile from town, and there hung him in full view of the negro cabins. They riddled the body with shots.

…Sheriff Handcock and County Treasurer L. A. Hatcher pleaded with the crowd, but to no avail.

The body was still hanging early yesterday morning.

The lynching was an orderly affair, in its way, and after the scuffle in which the negro was captured there was no undue demonstration. The shots were fired into the negro's body immediately after he was hung, and then the crowd dispersed.

Jailer Phil Stephan said:

…"The sheriff and I both suspected that the negro would be lynched and we made unusually slow progress in turning him over, hoping that the train might leave him. The negro begged us most piteously not to let him go, and we were tempted to telephone the governor, but since the judge and sheriff had sent for the prisoner to stand his commitment trial, we thought it beyond our jurisdiction to interfere. When they led the negro out I remarked to the servants, who were looking on in silence, 'Look at him well, he'll never come back.'"

While I don't pretend to know for certain the true details of what transpired between Mr. Hilsman and Miss Mitchell, I can't help but think of the following quotes from anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett:

With the Southern white man, any mésalliance existing between a white woman and a colored man is a sufficient foundation for the charge of rape.

…the same crime committed by white men against Negro women and girls, is never punished by mob or the law. A leading journal in South Carolina openly said some months ago that "it is not the same thing for a white man to assault a colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged!" – from The Red Record

Note: the above title is available for free with kindle.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.

Mayor of Griffin, Georgia Said He Would Have Helped to Hang Him

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 00:47:00 +0000

Oscar Williams was lynched at Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia in the summer of 1897. A Bibb County sheriff was actually supposed to transport Oscar to Atlanta (unharmed, of course), but he failed at his duty. Yet the county was apparently so proud of the part played in the unfortunate ordeal they devoted 5 newspaper columns across 2 pages – plus an illustration – to conveying the whole story. The title of the article was Hemp and Lead. Illustration below.

One line from the above referenced article that stood out to me was this: A mob recognizes no law. Here's a shorter rendition of what happened to Oscar Williams:

Columbus Daily Enquirer (Georgia)
Friday, 23 July 1897 [via GenealogyBank]

OSCAR WILLIAMS HUNG AT GRIFFIN.
Crowd of Citizens Capture the Rapist and Swing Him to a Limb.
HIS BODY FULL OF BULLETS.
Well Known Citizens of Griffin in the Mob, but the Coroner's Jury Declared That the Deceased Came to His Death at Hands of Parties Unknown
Griffin, Ga., July 22. – Oscar Williams, the negro brute who outraged the little five year old daughter of Mr. Campbell, of Henry county on Saturday, July 10th, was lynched here this morning at six o'clock.
Sheriff Herrington, of Bibb county, had Oscar Williams in charge and was on his way to Atlanta where he proposed to turn the prisoner over to the Atlanta jail for safe keeping, but Oscar was compelled to stop over in Griffin and made to pay the penalty of his hellish crime committed just twelve days ago.
On the arrival of the 6:13 Central train a large crowd had gathered at the depot and when the train came to a halt twenty or more determined young men boarded the train and began a search for Williams. The crowd was met by Sheriff [Herrington] and told that Oscar Williams was not on the train, but the people thought different and made a search that at first looked like the sheriff was giving them the straight tip, but finally Oscar was found concealed in the water closet and very tenderly and carefully taken out, placed in a buggy and driven out Broadway just outside the western city limits, followed by some two hundred men and boys, where he was hanged with a cotton well rope. The rope was tied in hangman's style and thrown over an oak limb, when Oscar Williams was drawn up five feet above ground. The other end of the rope was tied to a near by tree, and then five hundred bullets were shot into his body in less than half a minute. His legs were tied below the knees…and his hands fastened with handcuffs.
It just took twenty minutes from the time the train reached Griffin until the crowd began leaving the dead and mangled body of the brute hanging in the air.
There were no masks worn or any effort made to conceal anything by the determined crowd.
Sheriff Herrington and his deputy saw they were powerless to save their prisoner and after seeing that he had been successfully lynched they returned to Macon on the 9:15 train.
This makes the second negro lynched in Spalding county in less than ten months for outraging young white girls and strange to say both crimes were committed in Henry county.
The Enquirer-Sun's representative failed to ascertain just how the people here knew Oscar Williams was coming through on the early morning train, but as their is a well regulated telephone line down the Central road all the way to Macon the news could have been received that way. At any rate the news reached here in time for a good crowd to gather to avenge the outrage committed on a poor helpless five year old child.
Mr. Campbell, father of the unfortunate child, reached here before the body was cut down and identified the lynched negro as the brute who committed the crime. Oscar Williams confessed that he did commit the crime.
At 11 o'clock this morning the body was cut down and there was at once a rapid division of the rope among the spectators. It was cut into small pieces and distributed as far as it would go. Some of the men were content with pieces of the dead negro's shirt, trousers or suspenders, and desires were expressed even for pieces of his body for a memento.
Men, women and children, black and white, were gathered about the scene of the lynching all the morning. The whites were not slow in saying the right thing had been done and the negroes, if they thought differently, very wisely refrained from saying so.
The body, after it was cut down, was carried to the city hall where it was viewed by thousands who came too late to see it swinging. The negro's relatives at Zebulon have been wired to know if they want the remains. If not the burial will take place at the county poor farm.
It is an open secret that the lynching was done by some of the best citizens of Griffin. There have been rumors current that the men who took the law into their own hands were farmers, but the facts do not support this. Eye witnesses to the whole affair say confidently that in the mob there were not a half dozen men live outside the city.
The verdict of the jury empannelled [sic] by Coroner Williams was as follows:
"We the jury empannelled [sic] to inquire into the cause of the death of Oscar Williams, find that he came to his death by hanging and shooting at the hands of parties to us unknown…"
Mayor W. D. Davis, of Griffin, when asked about the lyncing [sic], said:
"Under my path of office, if it had occurred in the city limits, I would have done all I could to protect the negro. I was in bed at the time, but if I had known it was outside the city limits I would have helped to hang him."
Sheriff M. M. Morris had no expression of regret to make…

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynching of Oscar Williams is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.

Article referenced at top may be viewed online here >>> Georgia Historic Newspapers

Blood at the Root: a Racial Cleansing in America (Book Review)

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 22:17:00 +0000

Title: Blood at the Root: a Racial Cleansing in America
Author: Patrick Phillips
Publication: 2016, W. W. Norton Company
Hardcover noted as having 320 pages. I read the Kindle edition.
Short Synopsis: In the fall of 1912, the entire African American community of Forsyth County, Georgia was literally run out of and banished from the county by the white population. An all-white county remained for decades, even close to a century. The book explores why and how this happened. It's a dark read, but one that is important (I believe) for the citizens of the United States, even to this day.

What Happened

In early September 1912, nineteen-year-old Mae Crow, who had been missing, was found in the woods of Forsyth County, Georgia. This daughter of well-known citizens of Oscarville, Leonidas Alonzo and Azzie Jane Bennett Crow, had been savagely beaten and left for dead.

The next day, the Forsyth County sheriff arrested three young African Americans: Rob Edwards, age 24; Oscar Daniel, age 18; and Ernest Knox, age 16. Rob Edwards didn't stand a chance. He was almost immediately lynched – killed without due process.

Image by B. McDowell
via FindAGrave

On 23 September 1912, Mae Crow – "one of the most beautiful girls in all of Forsyth" – died from her injuries. When nightfall came after her funeral, "all hell broke loose in Forsyth County." Groups of white men on horseback – night riders – went into the African American community and told them to get out of the county, "or stay and die like Rob Edwards." The night riders used whatever means were necessary, including "posted notices, scrawled letters, rifles, torches, and sticks of dynamite."

By the end of October, the night riders had forced out all but a handful of the 1,098 members of the African American community – who left in their wake abandoned homes and schools, stores and livestock, and harvest-ready crops standing in the fields.

A contemporaneous Georgia newspaper article (19 October 1912 Savannah Tribune) stated this:

Trouble Brewing In Hill Country

CLASH OF RACES FEARED IN NORTHEAST GEORGIA

Many Blacks Are Being Driven Away by Angry Whites…

Gainesville, Ga., October 13. – (Special) – Resulting from the recent reign of terror in Forsyth county, racial hostilities have broken out in northeast Georgia that threaten to become as serious as conditions during the period which followed the close of the civil war…

GAINESVILLE INVADED BY NEGROES
Gainesville is being invaded as a haven of refuge by hordes of Negroes from Forsyth and neighboring counties, who have been driven from their homes by indignant whites. The Negro sections of the city have been flooded with safety-seeking Negroes, and scores of shanties and dwelling houses shelter as many as six or more families.

All roads entering Gainesville from the southeast are flanked by improvised camps, sheltering the fleeing blacks and many families are forced to live temporarily in the wagons in which the fled from their homes…

Anonymous letters have been sent almost every planter in the hill country, demanding the dismissal of all Negro laborers, and their ejection from the premises. Most of these missives threaten arson and dynamiting of the houses in which the Negroes live as penalty for disobeyance [sic]. In many instances, mobs of whites appeared at the Negro homes on farms and openly demanded evacuation of the shacks and shanties…

And this from the west coast (5 November 1912 Riverside, California Independent Enterprise):

NEGROES LEAVE GEORGIA

Driven Out by Whites Because of Recent Outrages

CUMMINGS, [sic] Ga., Nov. 4. – Because of recent outrages alleged to have been committed on white women by negroes in Forsyth county, many negroes have been driven out of that district, regardless of their standing, good, bad or indifferent…Hundreds have already gone and others are departing, among them many peaceable, hard-working blacks, some of whom own land. Not only have the negroes been warned, but leading white farmers have been given notice that their houses and barns would be burned or dynamited if they did not get rid of their negro tenants and laborers…

Meanwhile, the two African American teenagers accused of killing Mae Crow had been taken to Atlanta for safekeeping. Oscar Daniel and Ernest Knox were given a trial in Forsyth County – it lasted a single day. The two were convicted and sentenced to hang. Georgia law of the time stated executions were to be private events. But this happened:

Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
26 October 1912 [via GenealogyBank]

FENCE WAS BURNED TO SEE A HANGING

Three Thousand People Crowded the Hillsides, Back of Militia, at Cumming Yesterday…

Not Enough Negroes Left in That Part of Forsyth County to Arrange a Funeral – Gallows Yard Turned Into Open Space by Crowd of People.

Cumming, Ga., Oct. 25. -- After a mob of citizens burned a fence erected about the gallows, more than 2,000 persons witnessed the hanging today of Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniels, convicted negroes, on a charge of assaulting and causing the death of a white girl. Militia from Atlanta were on guard for the third time in six weeks to preserve order.

Special to The Chronicle.
Cumming, Ga., Oct. 25. – Amid the cheers of thousands of spectators, gathered about a hollow square, 200 yards from the gallows, Oscar Daniels and Ernest Knox, negroes, paid the death penalty here today for assaulting and causing the death of a young white woman near Cumming, in Forsyth County, September 8th, less than seven weeks ago. They were convicted three weeks ago yesterday.

Militia Criticized.
The failure of the state militia at Cumming to enforce the state law providing the private executions was criticized by state officials today, who declared the hanging should have been delayed until another fence could have been erected in place of the one burned by the citizens just before the arrival of the troops…

The double trap was sprung by Sheriff W. W. Reid at 11:19 o'clock, and twenty minutes later the two bodies were cut down and placed in a single pine box to be buried by the county as criminal paupers this afternoon. They will not be accorded a funeral by members of their own race, as there are practically no negroes left in Forsyth County, and the few remaining are afraid to venture out on such a mission…

Only…attendants, county officers, newspaper representatives, members of the dead girl's family and soldiers were permitted within the 200-yard area. Two companies of Atlanta militiamen formed a dead-line and kept the thousands of morbidly curious – men, women and children – out of reach of the scaffold. But they were satisfied to stand on the surrounding hillsides and view the spectacle from a distance. Estimates of the crowd vary, but it is not exaggerating to state that no less than 3,000 persons assembled here – the first legal execution in Forsyth County in more than half a century…

Gallows Fence Burned.
Efforts of county officials to have the hangings conducted privately, as required by law, were futile. Because of the smallness of the jail, which would not permit the erection of a gallows, within the structure, a wooden scaffold was constructed in a field a half mile from the courthouse. This was surrounded by a fence fifteen feet high, forming an inclosure [sic] about thirty feet square.

About midnight a mob went to the site of the scaffold, tore down the high fence and made a monster bonfire of the lumber and timbers. This morning only a heap of charred embers was left of what had been the fence. The scaffold was not molested.

Ordinary H. V. Jones early this morning ordered the fence rebuilt, but when he undertook to secure lumber with which to rebuild it, not a dealer in town could be found who would sell the material…

A year after the executions, Forsyth County still maintained its all-white status. An article in Georgia's Marietta Journal dated 24 October 1913 stated the following:

It may be that Hon. Henry L. Patterson [of Cumming], judge of the superior court of the Blue Ridge Circuit, will remove with his family to Marietta some time soon…

Judge Patterson, so it is said, is to leave Cumming because it is impossible to secure house servants since the negroes have all been run out of the county. Last year the anti-negro crusaders banished the colored people from Forsyth as St. Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland. There is not a negro left to remind the people that there is a continent of Africa…

National attention was gained again after nearly two more years passed:

Trenton Evening Times (New Jersey)
28 August 1915 [via GenealogyBank]

GEORGIA COUNTY EXILES NEGROES
ATLANTA, Ga., Aug. 28. – As a result of trouble in Forsyth County and in the neighboring territory between whites and blacks, all negroes have been barred from entering the county. This was brought out clearly by the experience of Hudson Moore, a prominent resident of Atlanta, who went to Cummings [sic] on legal business and took along with him a negro nurse and negro chauffeur. While he was in the court house he heard a commotion outside, and hurrying out he found a crowd of several hundred gathered around the two negroes threatening them with dire vengeance if they did not leave the county at once. Moore at once intervened, and after a talk with the crowd he took the two negroes in his automobile and hurried them out of the county, a distance of fifteen miles, and left them there while he returned to complete his business.

While more articles exist that could be cited, I imagine the newspapers stopped reporting at some point.

75 years later, a national renewed interest in the whiteness of Forsyth County, Georgia was born. Two "Brotherhood" marches took place there in January 1987. The first was stopped short of its goal due to such resistance (vile hatred) by the people of the county, as well as an underwhelming police presence. The second, also known as the "Freedom" march, and even more prominent than the first, was a success (to the degree the marchers could say it was completed). Among the leaders of the procession were famed Civil Rights activists such as Hosea Williams and Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.

What even more people of my generation likely remember, however, was the visit to Forsyth County by Oprah Winfrey. She took her young show there the month after the Brotherhood and Freedom marches. The white nationalists and racists were on display for all the world to see. And I would be surprised if any of them were around in the time of the death of young Mae Crow.

Patrick Phillips, the author of Blood at the Root: a Racial Cleansing in America, arrived at Cumming as a school-aged boy in the 1970s. I dare say he was raised a bit differently than many (most?) of his fellow county residents. In fact, his parents fought for awareness and change by marching on the side of Brotherhood and Freedom in 1987.

PBS News Hour spoke with Mr. Phillips in January 2017. One thing he said stood out to me – "…sometimes the gains of one generation are given back in the next."

That same report shared this final fact: "The population of Forsyth County, Georgia is less than 4% black. In 2000, it was less than 1% black."

A few passages from the book I took note of and highlighted:

Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. – Lewis Allan, 1937
In 1907, W. E. B. Du Bois had put into words what every "colored" person in Georgia knew from experience, which was that "the police system of the South was primarily designed to control slaves…And tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police."
But of all their methods, torches and kerosene worked best, since a fire created a blazing sign for all to see and left the victims with no place to ever come back to.
Having such a man in the White House emboldened white supremacists across the nation and particularly in the South, which [President Woodrow] Wilson had once called home.

Highly recommended.

Swift Vengeance Served on John Smith of Laurens County, Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 11:37:00 +0000

The main reason I wish to share the following newspaper article is it contains the name of the subject's father. Especially with African American research – even after emancipation – this information is not always easy to come by. The intent is not to gratuitously disparage Mr. Smith.

But first, a suggestion on newspapers as a source as they pertain to accounts of lynchings – especially in the South. Basically, be aware and verify when possible. Be aware of the time and context. White newspapers, generally speaking, were biased in favor of white people (oftentimes the alleged wronged party). Fitzhugh Brundage, in Lynching in the New South, writes this:

For all of the information that newspaper accounts provide, their serious limitations also must be recognized. Because the majority of extant newspapers from the period are white newspapers, they reflect the harsh racial attitudes of the day, and their accounts of lynchings, the alleged crimes that prompted lynchings, and the portrayals of mob victims must be treated with great caution…[W]hite descriptions of both the alleged offenses and the character of lynching victims cannot be accepted without question.

On to the article.

Macon Weekly Telegraph (Georgia)
Friday, 29 July 1881 – pg. 2 [via GenealogyBank]

SWIFT VENGEANCE ON A BLACK SCOUNDREL IN LAURENS COUNTY. – We find the following in the Dublin Post:
On last Monday night, Mr. R. T. Dominy was absent from home on an all night's fishing excursion, having left his young wife and little children with no other protection than that of his wife's mother, Mrs. Colley. About midnight, after the family had been asleep for some time, Mrs. Dominy felt some one touch her foot. But she was so overcome by drowsiness that she could not rouse herself at first. But presently she felt a hand upon her so plainly that she called her mother, whereupon she heard the party crawl under her bed. She asked her mother to get up and look after one of her children, pretending that she did not know that an intruder was in the house. When the mother appeared with the lamp she beckoned her to the bedside and whispered that some one was under the bed. Mrs. Colley was incredulous at first, but finally looked, when there met her horror-struck gaze a buck negro with no garment on but a shirt, holding some of the baby's clothing over his face, it is supposed to escape detection. She screamed to him to get out, which he did in hot haste and ran off a short distance, but then returned to get his pants which had been left at the outside of the window. The sequel renders it impossible to get those who know most to talk much, but from all we can gather we are perfectly satisfied that a few cool men of good judgement set their wits to work to find out the guilty negro. From the tracks and from what the ladies could tell and other testimony they satisfied themselves that John Smith, alias John Cellam, a bad negro about twenty years of age, living with his father, Henry Smith, on the Fisher place near Mr. Dominy's, was the one they wanted. They did nothing hastily or rashly, but took two days to investigate. On Thursday night about midnight they went to Henry's house, called him up and asked for John. Henry told them he was sleeping in the shed room. They thundered at the door but failed to rouse him, so they broke down the door and shot him to death before he waked.

Only Negro Voter Killed: a Georgia Civil Rights Cold Case Project

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 08:34:00 +0000

Maceo Snipes was an honorably discharged World War II veteran when he went to cast his vote in the 1946 Georgia Democratic primary for governor. He was also a black man.

Earlier that year, federal courts struck down the usual "whites only" voting rule for primaries in Georgia. Eugene Talmadge, one of the candidates for governor, denounced the decision "as a threat to segregation, [and] promised to restore the white primary and to keep blacks in their place in Jim Crow Georgia." [Source]

In spite of threats from the Ku Klux Klan, Maceo Snipes bravely became the first African American to cast a ballot in Taylor County, Georgia. Days later, he was dead. Erica Sterling wrote for The Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University in August 2014:

The day after Snipes voted, four white men arrived in a pick-up truck outside of his grandfather’s farmhouse, where Snipes and his mother Lula were having dinner. The men, rumored to be members of the local Klan chapter, called for Snipes, who came outside to meet them. During their encounter outside the house, Edward Williamson, who sometimes went by the name of Edward Cooper, shot Snipes in the back.

There are varying stories as to how Mr. Snipes got to the hospital, but he got there. Then he waited while the doctor worked on other patients. (I wonder how many of them had gun-shot wounds.)

Approximately six hours lapsed from the time Williamson shot Snipes until the doctor performed surgery to remove the bullets, the family would later say. The story that still resonates from that day in the Snipes family carries the same theme of medical neglect found in other Georgia civil rights cold cases: Not long before he died, Snipes was talking actively with his family. The white doctor at one point said Snipes would need a transfusion, then said it would be impossible because there was no “black blood” available at the hospital…Without a transfusion, Snipes died from his injuries two days later, on July 20.

Because of the rumored threat to the lives of anyone daring to attend the funeral for Maceo Snipes, he was reportedly buried in the middle of the night in an unmarked grave in Butler, Taylor County.

News Article from the Time

Marietta Daily Journal (Georgia)
Sunday, 28 July 1946 – pg. 5 [via GenealogyBank]

Only Negro Voter In Rupert Killed
ATLANTA, July 27. – (UP) – The Walton county lynching of four Negroes follows by one week the death of Macio Snipes, a Negro war veteran at Rupert, Ga.
Snipes was the only Negro to vote at Rupert in the Georgia primary that returned white supremacy candidate Eugene Talmadge to the Governor's chair.
A coroner's jury ruled that he was killed by one of four white men who called at his home.
The fact that he was the only Negro voter in the precinct, said the jury, was only a coincidence. The jury said the men went to his house to collect a debt.

The killer/s also claimed self-defense; the coroner's jury called the shooting justified.

[Note: the "Walton county lynching" mentioned in the above article refers to the Moore's Ford lynching of George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcolm, and Dorothy Malcolm – the "last mass lynching in America."]

Links to more about the killing of Maceo Snipes:
· Answers Sought in 1946 Ga. Killing (Washington Post article dated 13 February 2007)
· Killing and Segregated Plaque Divide Town (New York Times article dated 18 March 2007)
· U.S. Department of Justice Notice to Close File (updated 29 September 2016)

The Tuskegee Institute, under its founder Booker T. Washington, recorded data on lynchings. The guidelines used to decide if a killing was to be deemed a lynching were the following: “There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race or tradition.” [Source: 100 Years of Lynchings]

Some might not consider the murder of Maceo Snipes to be a lynching. I do.

Dynamite Put Under Negro

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:47:00 +0000

I failed in finding any words to add. The backstory is Mr. Jackson was accused of killing Lem Sanders, an employer of his, one summer night in 1915 Cochran, Bleckley County, Georgia. After the alleged killing, Jackson secured himself in his home. When Marshal W. Sumter Hogg and Oscar Lawson came to arrest Jackson, they were "shot down" (presumably by Jackson) and killed.

Columbus Ledger (Georgia)
Thursday, 15 July 1915 - pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

Dynamite Put Under Negro
Black Who Killed Three Whites is Blown Up and Shot to Pieces.
------ [Following printed as an update.]
TWO MORE LYNCHED
Cochran, Ga., July 15. – Two negroes, suspected in giving aid to Peter Jackson, alleged slayer of three white men near here Tuesday, were lynched last night near Hawkinsville. A posse yesterday killed Jackson.
------
Cochran, Ga., July 15. – After three white men had been killed by James Jackson, a negro, in Bleckley and Pulaski counties, another negro [was ordered to] put dynamite under the house where Jackson had barricaded himself, touched off the charge and blew Jackson to that place where all bad negroes go.
…It is believed that the charge of dynamite killed the negro, but if it did not, the shots that were fired after the explosion put an end to his existence.

It's difficult to know for sure the names of the three individuals dynamited, shot, and lynched that July. Two different forenames are even given in the article transcribed above. Another article suggested they were James Jackson, his brother (also a Jackson), and Peter Lambo. Peter's surname has also been recorded by other research organizations as Jambo and Fambrough.

Lynching of Morris Daniels Wasn't a Complete Success

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 18:53:00 +0000

First he was the "right" guy. Then he wasn't. Then he was again. Lady Justice probably hung her head in shame.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Saturday, 15 July 1911 - pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

LYNCHING WASN'T COMPLETE SUCCESS
Coroner and Sheriff Found Negro Crawling Along the Road.
MOULTRIE, Ga., July 14. – When the coroner and his official retinue went out near Hartsfield this morning to hold an inquest over the remains of Morris Daniels, a negro accused of assault in Randolph County, who was supposed to have been lynched by a Mitchell County mob last night, they found him crawling along the road mortally wounded.
Daniels is charged with an assault upon an aged white woman. He was arrested by the sheriff, who was with the coroner this morning, and will be held pending identification by the victim, who is being brought here from Randolph County in an automobile. Sheriff Boyd says he will swear in a sufficient number of deputies to protect the negro, though no trouble is anticipated.
The negro was left for dead by five men who came from Mitchell County yesterday and placed him under arrest, though not positive as to his identity. They finally concluded he was not the man they were looking for and released him and he returned to his work. Last night at 11 o'clock these same men returned to the mill quarters, took him in charge and left ostensibly for Sale City.
It is now claimed that after going along the road a short distance and after Daniels confessed to the commission of the crime, he made an effort to escape, saying he would die before he would go back to Randolph County. The negro was shot in the back with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, eight of the bullets entering between the shoulders and hips. After shooting they left him for dead.
…Daniels is still alive, though physicians say he can't live. He is conscious and made a statement to Sheriff Boyd and others that the mob came to his shanty in the night, waked him up and told him they had decided he was the right party and to dress and go with them. Before leaving the shanty, so the negro claims, he was brutally treated by the crowd. He says that he did not confess to being the guilty party and never attempted to escape, but was shot without provocation.
Parties left in an automobile to bring the lady who was assaulted in Randolph County to Moultrie to see if she can identify him in the event he is living when they arrive. In the event she does identify him as the guilty party there is likelihood that an effort will be made to lynch him.
…In the event she fails to identify him or declares he is not the guilty one, evidence sufficient is in the possession of the sheriff to justify prosecution and doubtless the grand jury will be called upon to act.

[Oh. Just so you know, the distance between Randolph County and Moultrie (Colquitt County) is more than 70 miles. Yeah. There's that.]

What happened next. Where did the "sufficient evidence" go?
Story goes from front page to back page in 24 hours.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Sunday, 16 July 1911 - pg. 10 [via GenealogyBank]

"LYNCHED MAN" IS DEAD; INQUEST HELD
Morris Daniels, Who Was Shot and Left For Dead, Lived For Hours.
LITTLE EVIDENCE GIVEN
MOULTRIE, Ga., July 15. – Morris Daniels, who was shot and left for dead by a party of Mitchell County men in the western part of this county night before last, is dead from the gun shot wounded inflicted. Coroner Dicks held an inquest immediately after the negro's death and the verdict of the jury was that he came to his death from gun shot wounds at the hands of unknown parties.
Mrs. Shellhouse, of Randolph County, the aged woman who was the victim of the assault of which the negro was accused, was unable to come to Moultrie for the purpose of identifying Daniels, but her son came and after seeing the negro said he thought he was the guilty one…
Along with young Shellhouse came Deputy Sheriff Peacock, of Randolph, and he said from the description he had of the assailant the dead man was the criminal sought. Some persons claim that at the date that the alleged assault was committed Daniels was working in Colquitt County for M. D. Norman. An effort was made by Sheriff Boyd to communicate with Norman by phone, but he was unable to reach him.
Unless the grand jury, which convenes the first week in October, is able to secure evidence upon which to base indictments against the parties causing Daniels' death, there will be no prosecutions as the evidence now in possession of the sheriff is not sufficiently definite to authorize a prosecution.

Not a Semblance of Humanity Left at the Foot of the Tree

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000

Rage is reckless, and rage is contagious. A writer for the Bay City Daily Tribune (Michigan) in 1903 put a finer point on it this way:

[Rage runs] through a maddened mob like some rapid infectious disease. Under such conditions men do not stop to weigh evidence, and rarely listen understandingly to any remonstrance made.

This sentiment (and seemingly lack of control) has been on display in countless acts of mob violence – often dubbed to be lynchings – over the course of history of the United States. Here I will spotlight the case of "Ed Claus."

Winston-Salem Journal (North Carolina)
Thursday, 16 July 1903 – pg. 5 [via GenealogyBank]

LYNCHED A GEORGIA NEGRO.
Literally Shot Him to Pieces in the Presence of His Victim.
Eastman, Ga., July 13. – Ed Claus, a negro, was lynched near here last night, victim, Miss Susie Johnson, looking on.
Last Thursday Claus criminally assaulted Miss Johnson as she was returning from a small school which she teaches. The negro dragged the young woman into the woods and kept her prisoner for several hours. After being released, she could not go home, because of her injuries, and was found in the woods next morning by a searching party.
A posse was organized and the negro was trailed from here almost to Savanna [sic] before he was overtaken. The negro was brought here by his captors last night and taken to the home of Miss Johnson. The young woman identified the negro, and when asked what she wanted done with him, said:
"He ought to be killed."
The negro was tied to a tree, and the members of the mob fired at him until he was literally cut to pieces. There was not a semblance of humanity in the bloody mass left at the foot of the tree.

But, wait. Oops. The mob made a bloody mass of the wrong man.

Lexington Leader (Kentucky)
Monday, 27 July 1903 – pg. 2 [via GenealogyBank]

LYNCHED WRONG MAN
REWARD OFFERED NOW FOR THE RIGHT MAN, BUT NO REWARD FOR THE LYNCHING PARTY.
SAVANNAH, GA., July 27. – Some days ago a Negro was shot to pieces by a mob in Dodge county for criminally assaulting Miss Susie Johnson, a young teacher. It now transpires that the Negro who was so cruelly lynched had never seen Miss Johnson and was, therefore, innocent of the crime. The members of the mob thought they were lynching Ed Claus, who really committed the assault on Miss Johnson, and it is said that the young woman identified the lynched Negro as her assailant. The Negro told the mob that he was innocent and begged for time to get witnesses, to prove an alibi, but the mob was merciless and shot him to death.
…After the lynching an investigation was begun by officers, with the result that they have located Ed Claus, the real assailant, and a posse passed through here this afternoon to arrest him.
Governor Terrell has taken cognizance of the fact that the wrong Negro was lynched by offering a reward of $300 for the apprehension of Ed Claus.

In addition to the obvious atrocity committed by the mob, not knowing the identity of the "wrong man" gnaws at me. What was his name? Where was he from? Who were his parents? What did he do for a living? Was he married? Did he have children? What made him smile?

He Probably was Dead Before They Set Him on Fire

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 05:09:00 +0000

In The End of American Lynching, Ashraf H. A. Rushdy writes the following:

The most manifest expression of that mob-mindedness – the mass spectacle lynching…was coming to an end by the early to mid-1930s. There continued to be gruesome lynchings from the early to the late 1930s…Nonetheless, there was a difference from the era of spectacle lynchings, as the mobs were indeed smaller and the press coverage more condemnatory. Public opinion was changing, and lynchings were no longer as effective a form of terrorism and spectacle as they had been prior to the Depression.

One of those gruesome lynchings occurred in 1938 Crisp County, Georgia, where John Dukes was dragged and burned to death. Maybe that "changing public opinion" was the reason local residents and officials wanted to act like it was hardly a lynching.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Monday, 11 July 1938 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

'All Quiet' as Arabi Inters Lynch Figures
…Simultaneously, Arabi's Negro population held last rites for John Dukes, elderly Negro who shot Marshal [Freeman O.] Epps fatally yesterday in resisting arrest for drunkenness, and suffered lynching at the hands of an enraged mob a little before sundown.
…Sheriff's deputies from Cordele left in charge here overnight after the slaying of the town's only law officer reported "everything quiet" and "business as usual."
…"Marshall Epps and the old Negro were good friends," one pointed out. "The town lays the whole thing to liquor, and nothing else."
Dukes shot Epps when the latter was summoned by other Negroes on word he was "drunk and raising a row," in the Negro section of town. Epps returned the fire before falling and wounded Dukes twice.
Lynching Minimized
"It wasn't hardly a lynching, anyway," another resident observed. "Dukes was unconscious and dying when the boys came to get him, and he probably was dead before they set him on fire."

The article continued by adding Dukes "was a good man and well liked by Arabi's white people," and concluded by noting no arrests were made, and the sheriff said he believed the incident "closed as far as I am concerned."

Georgia Farmers Kill Negro Boys Who had Nothing to Do with the Murder

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 23:28:00 +0000

Silas Hardin Turner, a young and prominent white farmer, was killed 4 July 1915 in Jones County, Georgia when he attempted to collect a debt. Since the alleged killer was African American, the white people of the county went on a rampage and filled three black bodies with bullets. Two of the victims, Alonzo Green and his son, had absolutely no connection to the killing of Turner.

Tampa Tribune (Florida)
Tuesday, 6 July 1915 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

GEORGIA FARMERS KILL NEGRO BOYS
SHERIFF SAYS VICTIMS OF MOB KNEW NOTHING OF WHITE MAN'S MURDER
500 MEN IN MOB
Cut Telephone Wires So Word of Lynchings Could Not Be Sent
GRAY, Ga., July 5 – Sheriff Etheridge and his deputies have been through Jones County today hunting for the negroes who are alleged to have figured in the murder of Silas Turner, a prominent farmer, which occurred on Sunday morning near Round Oak. No other arrests have been made and the only persons held are the three in jail at Macon.
"I have seen two dead bodies of negroes myself," said the Sheriff tonight. "They tell me that there are others who have been killed in the race troubles, but I have nothing official."
"The dead negroes are Alonzo Green and his son, the boy being sixteen years old, of Wayside. They had nothing to do with the murder of Silas Turner."
Enraged Jones County citizens started out Sunday, it is said, to avenge the murder of Turner by rounding up every negro in Jones County…
Shot Father and Son
Two negroes are known to have been shot to death by the mob last night near Round Oak and Wayside, about thirty miles from here…Telephone wires leading to the villages were cut last night and news of the lynchings did not become known here until early this morning when sheriff's deputies arrived with three negroes who were being held in connection with the killing of Silas Turner, a young farmer, whose death precipitated the outbreak of race feeling…

Another news article opted for a sympathetic tone regarding the lynching deaths of Alonzo Green and his son:

RACE TROUBLE FOLLOWS MURDER OF JONES FARMER
…The killing of old man Green and his son is pictured as most pitiful by those who learned the details. Green and his son had asked some white persons, it is reported, if it would be safe for negroes to venture down the road from Wayside and were assured that they would be safe. Hardly before going 200 yards the bodies of the two Greens are said to have been riddled with bullets. It is said that the slaying was due to some members of the posse mistaking Green for the negro they sought.

Silas Turner, according to census and cemetery records, was a son of John D. Turner (1851-1930) and Mattie Hardin (1865-1946). The three are buried at Hillsboro Baptist Church Cemetery in Jasper County.

The 1910 Jones County, Georgia Federal census shows Alonzo Green was born about 1880 in Georgia. He and wife Cora were married about 1902, and Alonzo was supporting his family as an axe man in a saw mill. By the Spring of 1910, Alonzo's household bore two children – James D. (b. abt 1901) and Annie M. (b. abt 1903). Based on this information, it appears James D. Green was the son of Alonzo lynched without cause in July 1915.

NAACP Gets Charges Brought, but Still No Justice for Joe Jordan & James Harvey

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 18:16:00 +0000

The story of the lynchings of Joe Jordan and James Harvey begins in the following manner, as told by Fitzhugh Brundage in Lynching in the New South:

During the summer of 1921, Harvey and Jordan had hiked throughout the Deep South before stopping to work for a few months in Wayne County in south Georgia. The young men, one of whom was a war veteran, quickly became ensnared by the worst forms of coercive practices of southern agriculture and were unable to compel their white employer to pay them…[A]fter the men had demanded their wages, their employer's wife brought charges against them for attacking and raping her.

Three days later, while Jordan and Harvey sat in a Savannah jail – without defense counsel who cared one way or the other – the two were found guilty and sentenced to death.

An uncle of James Harvey then contacted the NAACP for help. The organization hired a white lawyer, James A. Harolds of Jesup, GA, to represent Jordan and Harvey. The lawyer succeeded in getting the case to the state supreme court, but the higher institution upheld the lower court's verdict.

The publicity of the case even prompted some prominent white women of Wayne County to get involved. In May of 1922, about eight months after the original conviction, a local judge was petitioned to grant Jordan and Harvey a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. The petition was denied, so the NAACP played the last card they had by petitioning the governor of Georgia, Thomas W. Hardwick, for executive clemency. On the very date of their scheduled execution, Jordan and Harvey were granted a reprieve.

Savannah Tribune (Georgia)
Thursday, 13 July 1922 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

N.A.A.C.P. PROTESTS LYNCHINGS
Governor Called Upon To Institute Action Against Sheriff
New York, July 7, – How two young colored boys, James Harvey and Joe Jordan, who were accused of attempted criminal assault while on a hiking tour through Georgia, were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, and then lynched after Governor Thomas W. Hardwick had granted a respite of thirty days, was revealed here today when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People made a public letter to Governor Hardwick. The letter, signed by James Weldon Johnson, secretary, recites the facts given above, pointing that both of the youths came from respectable families, and that the Association had investigated their case, secured convincing proof of their innocence, employed counsel, which counsel had presented the facts to the governor which gave him sufficient ground to delay their execution set for June 30. A mob, determined not to be cheated of their prey, had seized the boys and lynched them north of Lane's Bridge, Georgia, on July 1.
The association's letter calls upon the governor to institute action against Deputy Sheriff J. R. Tyre who allowed the prisoners to be taken from him as he was carrying them from Jesup to Savannah for safe-keeping, and against Tyre and his immediate superiors for furnishing so inadequate protection to the men in view of the feeling against them. It also emphasizes the fact that evidences against the men must have been indeed slight if he as governor had seen fit to grant the requested respite. This action was particularly urged in view of Governor Hardwick's recent public declaration that there would be no mob rule in Georgia while he was governor.

Governor Hardwick bowed to pressure, and charges of murder were brought against five individuals after a probe which lasted more than two months: L. W. Rhoden, chief of police of Jesup; J. R. Tyre, deputy sheriff of Jesup and Brunswick; Bob L. Price, Wayne County; Dock Rhoden, Wayne County; and Carl Stuart, Telfair County.

Five months later, all were acquitted – in spite of some pretty damning evidence. But it was obvious no juror ever intended to truly weigh the facts and come to a thoughtful verdict.

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
Saturday, 24 February 1923 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

FIVE ARE ACQUITTED IN HINESVILLE LYNCHING CASE
JURORS ARE OUT FOR 10 MINUTES BEFORE VERDICT
…WOMAN FEATURE WITNESS
Negroes' Death Favored By Sheriff, Mrs. Magett Says
HINESVILLE, Ga., Feb. 22. – A verdict of not guilty was returned by a jury here late this afternoon in the cases of James R. Tyre, Carl Stewart, Bob Price, Dock Rhoden and Chief of Police L. W. Rhoden, of Jesup, charged with murder in connection with the lynching of two negroes, Joe Jordan and James Harvey, on June 30, of last year.
…[F]our defendants took the witness stand in their own defense, that being the only testimony offered by the defense.
The verdict was reached ten minutes after the jury retired, apparently being decided on the first ballot…
Four defendants made practically the same statement. Deputy Sheriff Tyre, the first to testify, told of leaving Jesup with the two negroes, and starting on his trip to Savannah, via automobile. At the fork of "some road," he said, they were stopped by an automobile, parked across the road, with the lights burning.
One Acts as Spokesman
"One made did all the talking," Sheriff Tyre said. "We were told to hand over the two negroes, go on back to Jesup, and keep our mouths shut.
"We started back to Jesup after they took the negroes, and lost our way. Then we ran out of gasoline. I paid a negro to get us some gas and finally, we reached Hinesville. I then called up Jesup and reported the affair."
…Sensational testimony by Mrs. Vera Magett, juvenile probation officer of Jesup, and Morrison Thomas, also of Jesup, in which Sheriff Tyre was directly involved, featured the hearing of state witnesses.
Claims Lynching Favored
"I have been a target for those two negroes long enough," Sheriff Tyre was quoted as saying, by Mrs. Magett. "If the people want to lynch them," she continued, "let them come to the jail and get 'em."
Mrs. Magett further quoted the sheriff as praising the lynching if another respite was granted the two negroes by Governor Hardwick.
Morris Thomas told of his interview with Carl Stewart on the night of the lynching. He said he met Stewart and Price at the railroad station and that he jokingly asked them where they were going. They replied seriously, he said, that "We are going to a lynching," he quoted Stewart. The witness stated that there were numerous rumors heard about Jesup that night predicting a lynching and fixing the time at 10 o'clock.
The witness was later recalled to tell of his interview with Sheriff Tyre at the postoffice [sic] on the day following the lynching. Thomas said Tyre received a package, postmarked from Savannah, which he asked him (Thomas) to open. This, the witness said, he did, and discovered that the package contained a revolver. Sheriff Tyre then explained to him that the revolver was taken from him by the men which met them between Hinesville and Savannah, and lynched the two negroes…

The research of Mr. Brundage adds the following regarding the NAACP's involvement after the lynchings:

Unwilling to let the case drop, members of the Savannah branch of the NAACP traveled to the site of the lynching, saw to it that Jordan and Harvey were properly buried, and began gathering evidence against the lynchers. The investigations left little doubt that the deputy sheriff and policemen who had been transporting the prisoners were complicitous in the event. Numerous local witnesses claimed that the two officers had waited for hours at the site of the lynching until the mob arrived and "seized" Harvey and Jordan.

According to MonroeWorkToday, the lynchings of Joe Jordan and James Harvey are also referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930.

3 Dead: William Carreker, William Leonard, & a Preacher with No Name

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 20:42:00 +0000

In the summer of 1900, William Carreker was residing in Centerville, Talbot County, Georgia. He had married wife Lela just five years earlier, and the couple was raising their two sons – Andrew and James – on a farm northeast of the county seat of Talbotton. They seem to have been doing well at farming, at least well enough to employ a laborer.

Nine years later, almost to the day, William Carreker was still farming in Talbot County. He was characterized by Fitzhugh Brundage in Lynching in the New South as "one of the few black landowners in the area." On a Saturday night in June of 1909, William had a guest. A blind, possibly elderly and/or affluent, traveling negro preacher – whose name I do not know – was stopped over at the Carreker place.

And the white folk of the area did not like it. This traveling preacher, described as meddlesome and mischievous by a local newspaper, was supposedly "a disorganizer…stirring up strife" between the white planters and their "negro farm hands." He was telling the laborers they were essentially still enslaved; would never be truly free unless they stopped working for the white man.

So a posse of local citizens, led by William Marshall Leonard, went to the Carreker farm that fateful Saturday night to discourage the preacher from sowing discourse between the races. I'm sure words were exchanged, and things certainly got heated. By the time the night was over, the preacher was missing, Leonard was dead, and Carreker was in hiding.

Columbus Daily Enquirer (Georgia)
Tuesday, 22 June 1909 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

TALBOT CITIZEN WAS MURDERED
William Marshall Leonard Shot to Death at a Negro House.
DOUBLE-BARREL SHOT GUN WEAPON USED
Supposed Murderer Has Fled, But Posses Are Looking for Him. Crowd of Citizens Went to Negro's House Looking for a Meddlesome Preacher.
Talbotton, Ga., June 21. – (Special.) – The town of Talbotton and the whole county of Talbot are deeply stirred over the assassination of William Marshall Leonard, a prominent young farmer of this county.
Mr. Leonard was found yesterday morning at 10 o'clock at the home of a negro named William Careker, twelve miles from Talbotton. He with others went to Careker's house Saturday night to stop a disturbance raised by a negro preacher, and it seems that Mr. Leonard became separated from his companions there and was not missed until afterward. His companions took off the negro preacher, it is understood, and it was then that the tragedy occurred, someone, presumably Careker, shooting Mr. Leonard with a double-barrel shot gun. The load of shot entered his head and it is supposed caused instant death.
…Both Careker and the negro preacher, who was the cause of all the trouble, have disappeared. Parties are now scouring the country for them, the search being directed especially towards Careker, but up to last reports neither one had been located.
It seems the negro preacher was a disorganizer and did very mischievous work among the negro farm hands, stirring up strife between the farmers and their employes [sic]. A posse of citizens went to Careker's house with the supposed purpose of dealing with him in such vigorous manner that he would not meddle in such matters in the future, although it is not supposed that any unnecessarily harsh measures were contemplated – just a line of argument that would impress the negro with the necessity of ceasing such harmful and foolish tactics.
Mr. Leonard, who met death in such a tragic manner, was a son of Mr. John Leonard and one of the most prominent young men in the county. He married Miss Annie Holmes…
Mr. Leonard's funeral took place this morning, and he was buried at Hollingsworth [sic] church.

The day after Leonard was buried, Carreker was lynched. Supposedly after he had turned himself in to authorities and was placed in jail.

Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio)
Thursday, 24 June 1909 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

Mob Hangs Murderer.
ATLANTA, Ga., June 23. – William Carroker, a negro, charged with the murder of William Leonard, a young white man, was taken from the Talbotton jail last night by a mob that met with no resistance and strung up to a tree until dead.

Mr. Brundage's analysis of the reason for this lynching, in addition to the fact a white planter was dead, seems quite simple: "Planters who participated in terrorist violence believed that they were restoring and preserving their own economic domination."

About that Preacher

His body was found the day after Carreker was hung for the supposed murder of Leonard. I don't believe for a minute he lived past that Saturday night, though the newspapers implied otherwise.

Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
Friday, 25 June 1909 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

NEGRO PREACHER FOUND IN CREEK
An Unknown Traveler Made Speeches to Negroes at Talbotton Which Angered Whites – Posse Had Whipped Him.
Talbotton, Ga., June 24. – After being taken from his house Saturday by a posse the body of a blind travelling negro preacher was found near here yesterday in a creek. The preacher, whose name has not been learned, had made speeches which angered the whites in his neighborhood, and public indignation against him was further inflamed by the fact that he stopped at the home of the negro William Carroker, who was lynched Tuesday night, for having killed Wm. Leonard, a white man, Saturday, while a posse of whites was searching for the preacher for the intention of warning him away from the community. The preacher is said to have influenced negroes not to work for whites.
The posse is said to have whipped the preacher, but it is claimed that they did no violence to him and that his death was accidental, due to falling from a bridge.

A couple of notes: William Marshall Leonard was buried at Collinsworth Cemetery (versus Hollingsworth as reported in a newspaper article transcribed above) in Talbot County, Georgia. Click for FindAGrave memorial. Also, other sources suggest the name of the preacher might have been Joseph Hardy, who is often listed as being lynched in Talbot County about the same time as Carreker for "wild talk."

Church Burned, and Jonah Wood Strung Up to a Tree

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 17:53:00 +0000

Columbus Daily Enquirer (Georgia)
Thursday, 16 June 1904 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

NEGROES LYNCH A NEGRO DEACON
HEARD COUNTY NEGRO LYNCHED BECAUSE HE HAD THREATENED TO REPORT CRAP SHOOTERS TO THE GRAND JURY.
La Grange, Ga., June 15. – News has just reached here that a negro by the name of Jonah Woods, who lived in the country near Texas Court grounds in Heard county, 25 miles from La Grange, was lynched by other negroes. Woods was a deacon in his church and a pious old negro. It is said he discovered a number of negroes playing "craps" and threatened to report them to the grand jury. Afterwards the church was burned down and two days later while plowing in the fields he was seized and strung up to a tree.

According to the 1900 Texas, Heard County, Georgia Federal census, Jonah Wood was born in Georgia about 1851. He married Milley about 1870, and they had at least two children. Jonah, a farmer, was next door to John R. Wood, who I believe was Jonah's and Milley's son. John, born about 1872 in Georgia, was also a farmer. About 1890, he married Ellen. The couple had at least three children: Idila, Jonah, and William.

Double Lynching: Mob Does Bloody Work in 1896 Columbus, Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:42:00 +0000

According to MonroeWorkToday, the double lynching of Jesse Slayton and Will Miles is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.

Savannah Tribune (Georgia)
Saturday, 6 June 1896 -- pg. 4 [via GenealogyBank]

A DOUBLE LYNCHING.
A Mob at Columbus, Ga., Does Bloody Work.
At 10:45 o'clock, Monday morning, a scene unparalleled in the history of Georgia was enacted in the city of Columbus. At that hour a mob of fully 600 armed men broke into the Webster building during the trial of Jesse Slayton, charged with assaulting Mrs. Howard Bryan last week and took the prisoner from the officers. Slayton was carried to the building at an early hour by a strong guard of men and the trial had already begun behind locked doors and a heavy armed guard of men to protect the prisoner from any demonstration of violence.
The mob rushed down upon the building, forced the doors and with resistless rush swept back the spectators and guards and seized and carried the negro out on the street. Resistance was utterly useless.
A rope was placed around Slayton's neck and he was dragged up Broad street, the crowd shooting him as they went. Near the bell tower they swung the negro up and perforated him with bullets.
After this the mob, as coolly and deliberately as in the first instance, went immediately to the court house and, overpowering the jailer, took Will Miles, a negro charged with assaulting Mrs. Albright, two years ago, and marched him slowly to where Slayton's lifeless body was hanging from a tree. The trembling negro was made to look upon the fate of his brother victim, and then a rope was placed about his neck and he was slowly suspended in the air and his body perforated with shot.
Right in the heart of the city for three and a half hours, riddled with bullets the two bodies swung from one of Broad street's shade trees. It was a gory spectacle – below the two swinging, horrible bodies, filled with leaden missives of death, was an excited crowd shouting in wild exultation.
Slayton's gory body was placarded as follows: "All cases of this kind shall be treated likewise."
Miles' body was adorned with the following legend: "Both cousins. This one convicted twice; mistrial once. Father hung for same offense."
Coroner Martin finally cut them down and held an inquest. The verdict rendered by both juries was to the effect that both persons came to their death at the hands of parties unknown.
The military was in readiness to protect Slayton but was not out because it was agreed Sunday, after a conference with civil authorities, that their presence would not be needed, no lynching being anticipated, as the negro had been unmolested so far as his trial was to take place immediately.

Vengeance of Law Visited on Culprits in Broad Daylight

Another article, published four days earlier in the Macon Telegraph, shares more harrowing detail:

…The terrified negro [Jesse Slayton], when he saw the crowd rushing in, crawled behind the judge's stand, but was dragged out and a noose put around his neck. Winchesters and pistols flourished in the air, but no shots were fired in the court room.
…The bodies [of Slayton and Will Miles] presented a gory spectacle and were an awful warning that the lives and honor of women will be protected and all outrages avenged at all cost. Two brutal crimes had been avenged.

Regulators Lynched Albert Aiken in 1909 Lincoln County, Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 22:06:00 +0000

Just like groups in the Wild, Wild West, the self-described regulators across the South considered themselves to be good town folk simply seeking justice for victims of criminal acts. This vigilantism, however, was discriminatory. It was almost always African Americans who paid the debt to society with their lives.

In Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930, author Fitzhugh Brundage writes, "Mob members did not suffer wrenching guilt; rather, they rejoiced that they had punished a deserving victim." (Emphasis mine.)

Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
Tuesday, 25 May 1909 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

SPIRES' ASSAILANT LYNCHED BY MOB
100 Lincoln County Farmers Took Negro From Jail.
STRUNG UP; BODY RIDDLED
Recent Activities of Negro Secret Societies Stirred Up Whites – Climax Came With Attack on Respectable Farmer – Mob Left Warning.
Special to The Chronicle.
Lincolnton, Ga., May 24 – The usual quiet village of Lincolnton was awakened at midnight last from peaceful slumber by the noise of a mob of about one hundred enraged citizens as they stormed the county jail and brought forth Albert Aiken, the negro farm hand who so viciously cut Jno Spires a highly respected white farmer last Thursday morning. It is learned here that the body of the negro was found swinging to a limb of a tree at Dry Fork Creek, three miles from this place, this morning and that the body was filled with bullet holes.
Upon the body was a placard which read: "Notice this is what will happen to all negroes in Lincoln county under similar circumstances," (Signed) "Regulators."
The place where the negro is said to have been lynched is near the place where he committed the crime and it is supposed that the mob who took him there had it in view to let the many negroes in that neighborhood see that it was time that they quieted down and stopped their efforts to ride over the farmers of this section.
The crime for which Aiken was lynched was committed last Thursday morning and has been the subject of conversation in the county ever since, but it was thought that there would be nothing done to him as the days passed and the farmers apparently were willing to let the law take its course, but yesterday the news went out that Mr. Spires, the injured man, was not likely to live many days and it rekindled the fire in the breasts of the white men of the county and the work of the mob last night is the climax of their deliberation over the matter.
This morning it is reported that Mr. Spires is very feeble and there is but little if any chance of his living.
He was…cut to a depth of three inches in [the] right side, the knife severing two ribs, lacerating the lung and injuring the stomach walls.
This is the first time in the history of Lincoln county that the jail has been stormed and the second time a lynching has occurred. There is but little trouble between the two races. Recently, however, inklings of negro secret societies being formed have reached the ears of the white citizens and they are of the belief that Aiken was a member of one of them, from remarks that he let fall while in jail. They seem determined to break up these clandestine meetings and the work of last night is said to be but a beginning of what will follow if the negroes show any more meanness.

4 Members of the Padgett Family Go Down in a Hail of Bullets

noreply@blogger.com (S. Lincecum) — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 08:45:00 +0000

A mother and father. A son and a daughter.

Daily Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Thursday, 23 May 1907 -- pg. 4 [via GenealogyBank]

RACE RIOT CAUSES THE DEATH OF FIVE
Reidsville, Ga., Is Scene of a Bloody Tragedy.
WAS OUTCOME OF AN ASSAULT
Besides the Five Perons [sic] Killed, Six Others Were Wounded – Great Indignation Is Felt in the Neighborhood – Trouble Feared.
Reidsville, Ga., May 22. – Two negroes lynched and three other persons dead, and six others injured is the net result of a criminal assault made Tuesday night on Mrs. Laura Moore, a widow, about 6 miles from here, by a negro.
From the best information it was learned that about 15 citizens surrounded the house of Sim Padgett, a negro whom they suspected of harboring another negro, Mack Strickland, who had assaulted a Mrs. Laura Moore, a respectable widow lady living in the neighborhood and demanded of Padgett's wife to search the house. Permission was given, but when the possed [sic] advanced to within 30 feet of the house, Padgett and the other negro men on the inside of the building opened fire on the posse, instantly killing John Hare and seriously wounding Barton Preston, also shooting James Daniels' eye out and wounding him in the shoulder and arm. Dr. J. L. Kennedy, county commissioner, also received a wound.
The fire was returned by the members of the posse, killing Sim Padgett and one of his girls, about 10 years old, and wounding two other girls, about 6 and 13 years of age, also shooting one of Padgett's boys, aged 20, through the lungs, and one, aged 22, through the hip.
The news spread like wildfire, and by 10 o'clock there were 500 men on the scene with rifles, shotguns and pistols.
A searching party started in pursuit of the two negroes who escaped from the house after the shooting, and one of them was captured and taken before Mrs. Moore, but she failed to identify him as her assailant.
Padgett's wife and son, who were severely wounded, were taken to Reidsville jail. On the way the officers were overtaken by about 75 men, and the prisoners were demanded. There was no other alternative and the prisoners were taken by the mob. The woman was told to run and as she did so, was riddled by bullets. Her son was wounded so he could not run and was shot to pieces in the public road.

For the taking of the 1900 U.S. Federal census, Sim Padgett and family were residing in the Hog Wallow district of Tattnall County, Georgia (Reidsville being the county seat). It appears Sim had moved his family from South Carolina just 5 – 7 years prior:

Padgett, Sim P. (head) b. Jul 1865, SC – m. 14 yrs – farmer
Padgett, Sula (wife) b. 1867, SC – m. 14 yrs
Padgett, Wilford (son) b. Jun 1887, SC
Padgett, Arthur (son) b. Apr 1889, SC
Padgett, Sim (son) b. Jul 1891, SC
Padgett, Sula/Suda (dau) b. Jul 1891, SC
Padgett, Dosia (dau) b. Sep 1893, SC
Padgett, Ben (son) b. Sep 1895, GA
Padgett, Mary A. (dau) b. May 1898, GA
Padgett, Dell (dau) b. Dec 1898, GA

Without further research, it's difficult to know for sure which of the children lost their lives that fateful day. Some sources suggest the son and daughter killed in the mob violence were Wilford and Dosia Padgett. Gene Nash, in the book All of God's Children, provides in a brief summary: "He [Sim Padgett] was attacked and his entire family was killed except for one young man who barely escaped."

The recounting I would suggest to you for further reading is part of Dayna D. Daniely's 2014 dissertation, Jean Toomer's "Portrait in Georgia": The Lynching of African-American Females in Georgia from 1871-1946. (The applicable text begins on page 74.) Here, it's reported that Ben and Mary were the child victims caught in the crossfire. Furthermore, Arthur Padgett was eventually the one to be tried for the original crime of assault on the widow Laura Moore. He was found not guilty.

What. A. Mess.

As an aside: if you, like me, were unaware of Jean Toomer's poem, here it is:

Portrait in Georgia
Hair--braided chestnut,
coiled like a lyncher’s rope,
Eyes--fagots,
Lips--old scars, or the first red blisters,
Breath--the last sweet scent of cane,
And her slim body, white as the ash
of black flesh after flame.