Thursday, June 13, 2024

Judge Orders Black Mother To Whip Her Son In The Courthouse Square


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.

 

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