Lexington, KY Jun 13, 1904, during the Ante-Bellum
era slave owners and plantation overseers made the whipping of slaves a common
disciplinary practice. Surprisingly this didn’t carry over into reconstruction,
of course during reconstruction they decided to not waste time and effort and
just murdered Black people.
However, on this Wednesday
in June, a judge decided whipping was the best way to let a 15-year-old boy
learn his place in the system. The boy, Simon Searce, had been jailed and
convicted of assaulting a White boy by hitting him with a rock. Judge John J
Riley might not have been racist, at the time of this sentencing he stated he
thought this was the best way to handle juvenile crime, still, there is no record
of Riley ever similarly sentencing White juveniles.
Adding to the indignity
Riley ordered Searce’s mother to carry out the sentence of 20 lashes. “Aunt” Mandy
Searce took her son to the public square accompanied by two policemen, she was
given a buggy whip to whip her son with. A crowd that appeared to be made up of
all Whites converged on the square to witness the whipping. The boy cried out
in pain and begged her to stop but she finished the 20 lashes, knowing that
with the large crowd, they both might have been lynched.
Although no Blacks had
been allowed to attend court, except Ms. Searce, and none were reported to be
in the town square at the time of the whipping the Lexington Herald-Leader
tried to give the impression that the Blach community was in full support of
further whippings to keep other juveniles on the right side of the law.
Sources:
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