Tuesday, December 27, 2022

History Snapshot: Gaslighting The Public To Excuse Lynching


Dec. 27, 1889, Lynching was so common in the Jim Crow South that it often barely made it into the paper and even then, it was just a few lines. The story was nearly always the same as well, White Woman Attacked. This time it was a remote part of Tuscaloosa County in Alabama. The woman was the wife of a farmer named Fowler and the suspect was one Bud Wilson. Mr. Wilson was arrested by two deputy sheriffs fifteen miles from Tuscaloosa, and while en route to the jail the party was overtaken by an armed mob of 50 men and hung from a tree while they riddled his body with bullets. The newspapers tried to make the mob into heroes for saving Mrs. Fowler from a black man who was known to be a “notoriously bad character and was wanted on several charges,” no one was ever charged in Wilson’s death.

Sources: 

https://www.newspapers.com/image/812814585/?terms=%22James%20Fowler%22&match=1

https://tavm.omeka.net/items/show/2317

https://www.newspapers.com/image/272949225/?terms=%22James%20Fowler%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/812814585/?terms=%22Bud%20Wilson%22&match=1
 

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