Wednesday, November 30, 2022

History Snapshot: 15 Year Old Lynched In Texas



November 30, 1921, A mob of white men chased down the car of Sheriff J.P. Flynt of Runnels County, Texas, and pulled 15-year-old Black Teen Robert Murtore from the car and murdered him.

Muratore had been arrested the day before for allegedly assaulting a nine-year-old white girl in Ballinger, Texas, the only evidence against Murtore was that he worked in the same hotel as the girl’s mother.

The mob had gathered at the jail in Ballinger the morning of the 30th and it was obvious to the veteran lawman what they were going to do. Roughly three miles outside of Ballinger the mob overtook the sheriff’s car. According to the Austin American, the sheriff pleaded with the mob to let the law do its job and let justice take its course but they forced the boy from the car and violently shoved him into one of their cars.

The mob tied him to a post a short way from the road and shot him at least 50 times. The Eagle newspaper of Bryan, Texas reported that the mob then left, “the ‘mob’ was very orderly and dispersed leaving Sheriff Flynt to get the coroner. If Sheriff Flynt, who had been sheriff for 8 years and a Texas Ranger for 7 years, recognized any members of the mob he never pressed charges and Robert Muratore’s murderers walked away.

 

Sources:
http://www.lynchingintexas.org/items/show/449

http://genealogytrails.com/tex/panhandle2/runnels/bios1.html

https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/15566/31295000657113.pdf?sequence

https://www.newspapers.com/image/384422757/?terms=Robert%20Murtore&match=1

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