United Farm Workers Face Down Police Corruption, Violence, and Murder

Photo: The funeral procession of Nagi Daifullah, 1973  Photographer: Cris Sanchez for the El Diario La Prensa

Lamont, California, August 1973 ― For decades farm workers were considered as the most replaceable part of the economy. They were not paid consummate to their labor; they lived in horrible conditions and endured terrible brutality because they were migrants who spoke little English and did not understand their rights.

This began to change in the 1960s when Cesar Chavez of the National Farm Workers Association (FWA) brought the members of his organization to join with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee who were mostly Filipino Americans. They struck against the vineyards and table grape farmers on September 16, 1965.

The two groups vowed to remain non-violent and slowly they gained support from the churches, local newspapers and other labor groups. The public began to support them for 5 years of various labor actions. What became known as The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott was one of the first successful farmworkers advancements.

While this was effective, there were 30 producers, who were growing 85 percent of the table grapes in the Central Valley of California who signed a contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Chavez regarded these as poor substitutes for the contract he had worked out. In just a few short years another strike was seen as necessary. The United Farm Workers (UFW) called for the strike in April. This strike though immediately brought resentment and antagonism, and as the strike continued through summer the strike became lethally violent.

At the beginning of August things were extremely tense throughout California’s San Juaquin Valley. Three sheriff’s offices had turned the Fresno County Fair Grounds exhibit halls into makeshift holding cells. The three counties, Fresno, Kern and Tulare, had made 3,000 arrests of UFW picketers. This was controversial and many church leaders in the community had gone on hunger strikes to protest. Kern County District Attorney Albert Leddy also announced that his office would not be prosecuting some 500 strikers for misdemeanor contempt of court violations.

The tensions brought on by these aspects of the strike led to buses of picketers being forced off roads and windows shot out in the buses, some picketers vehicles and grape producers, houses and vehicles. There were also reports of firebombing of the Kern County Sheriff’s substation, a sheriff deputy’s truck, a farm laborers’ home and vineyards foreman’s truck. On August 11 three men attempted to bomb an irrigation pump. The three were arrested and the bomb never went off.

Into this pool of anger arrived another immigrant group to fall under the crushing wheel of corporate farming. Since the middle of the 1960s farmers from Yemen had been coming to the California. Yemen then, as it is now, one of the poorest countries on Earth and these immigrants were coming to grasp their piece of the American dream.

One of these Yemeni farmers soon become one of the most important leaders of the Grape and Lettuce Boycott. The young man, Nagi Daifallah, was a small man in physical stature being only five feet tall and weighing one hundred pounds. Yet he was gifted and spoke three languages, Arab, Spanish, and English. He was an interpreter, good communicator, and a charismatic speaker. He had become a strike captain organizing the pickets focusing on specific places and times for attention.

In the very early morning, 1:15 am, of August 15 Daifallah was meeting fellow strikers and outlining the day’s activities when Kern County Sheriff Deputies approached after they had been surveilling for days. These deputies began their violence before the organized picketing began for the day. As the deputies started swinging their nightsticks into the crowd of strikers Daifallah turned to run away, and deputy Gilbert Cooper went after him. Cooper hit Daifallah with his heavy service flashlight, 14 inches long and heavy from 5 D-cell batteries.

This assault snapped Daifallah’s spine from his head without breaking the skin. Daifallah collapsed and Cooper and another deputy grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him across the Smokehouse Café parking lot and across the street and threw him into a cruiser, over 60 feet.

The report the deputies filed, and Cooper’s own was filled with lies. They stated that the strikers we drunk and disorderly and the deputies were breaking up the mob when Cooper was hit by a beer bottle in the eye, or cheek and so he had to run down someone half his size and hit him.

Richard Gervais, the Kern County coroner, reported that there was no way that the flashlight could have harmed Daifallah as it hit his shoulder. Inexplicably he never explained how or why Daifallah collapsed unconscious, as reported, from a blow to the shoulder.

Kern County DA Albert Leddy said he had trouble believing that the deputy wasn’t responsible after reading the coroner’s report and that he planned on bringing charges against Cooper and other deputies for the killing of Daifallah. Leddy added that he had at least 20 witness statements of Cooper hitting the smaller man.

The threat by the DA forced the coroner to hold an inquest with nine jurors. The two-day inquest had 20 witnesses, 13 of them UFW members, Deputy Cooper and the two other deputies, Dr. Robert Raskind the neurosurgeon who tried to save Daifallah at the hospital and Kern County pathologist Dr. Dominic Ambrossechia. Both doctors stated Daifallah died from multiple traumatic head injuries, but they failed to explain why there were no wounds or marks to the head that would result from such trauma.

In the end the jurors at the inquest went against the evidence and stated that the death was accidental. Chavez and other UFW immediately spoke out. Chavez said this was typical Kern County justice. UFW Attorney Jerry Cohen said there was no way a jury free of corruption could not see it as death at the hands of another.” The UFW began trying to get the Justice Department to become involved.

Two days after his death, on August 17^th 10,000 picketers, United Farm Workers’ members, and supporters marched four miles in silence to the memorial service for Daifallah at the United Farm Workers’ headquarters.

That same day a laborer, 60-year-old Juan de la Cruz was killed on the UFW picket line along the highway between Arvin and Weedpatch, California. Near the end of the day a truck with scab pickers came out of a field across the highway from the pickets. In the truck someone began firing guns. de la Cruz reacted quickly pushing his wife down to the ground. As he turned to see the truck de la Cruz was hit just below the heart by a 22 shell.

Because of witnesses the truck law enforcement was able to find the truck and make two arrests. Two Filipino farm workers, Ernest Baclig and Bayani Advincula, were taken into custody. A week later DA Albert Leddy dropped charges against Ernest Baclig, stating he had just been driving from the field.

The case against Bayani Advincula for the shooting death of Juan de la Cruz became a long twisting road through the American judicial system. His trial was delayed twice then the charges were appealed by his defense. In early 1974 Advincula had his charges reduced to manslaughter by judge P.R. Borton. D.A. Leddy appealed this to the Fifth District Court, which reinstated the murder charges. This back and forth went on until the summer of 1976. By this time the prosecution’s primary witness driver Ernest Baclig had been killed in an unrelated car accident. Finally on July 21, 1976, Advincula was found innocent of all charges.

During this violent month of August 1973 UFW leader Caesar Chavez nearly had close personal losses as well. On August 15 in Tulare County his son Fernando was shot at as he was picking up picketers. Fernando escaped unhurt from the incident. Then on August 20^th in Bakersfield California Chavez’s close associate and UFW second in command Ray Olivas had the windshield shot out of his car, Olivas and his wife were unhurt.

All the violence worked to end the strike. On August 20^th Chavez and the UFW executive board agreed to suspend the pickets and work stoppage against the polling of his membership. Chavez spoke at Juan de la Cruz’s services about his belief they would still win. “The force that is generated by that spirit of love is more powerful than any force on earth.  It cannot be stopped,” he said. “We live in the midst of people who hate and fear us.  They have worked hard to keep us in our place.  They will spend millions more to destroy our Union.  But we do not have to make ourselves small by hating and fearing them in return.  There is enough love and goodwill in our movement to give energy to our struggle, and still have plenty left over, to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us.” 

Although it took two years Chavez was right, the union did win. After the strike ended, the union changed its tactic to boycott the produce and union staff and volunteers spread out across the country, organizing popular support for the boycotting of table grapes, lettuce and Gallo wine.

The boycotts had an incredible impact, polls showed that by 1975 there were 17 million Americans boycotting table grapes, lettuce and Gallo Wines. This, along with pressure from supermarket chains, forced growers to negotiate for a new contract. Then in 1975 a one-of-a-kind state law guaranteeing California farm workers the right to organize, vote in state-supervised secret-ballot elections and bargain with their employers wins passage. This remains the only state law of its kind 50 years later.

Sources:

https://tinyurl.com/348tve6c

https://tinyurl.com/5n8jmn6m

https://farmworkermovement-csun.org/juan-de-la-cruz-funeral/

https://tinyurl.com/57nzc2t4

https://ufw.org/research/history/ufw-chronology/

 

                       

 

Southern Racism Stronger Than War Department And Department of Justice in 1942

 

United States Attorney General Francis Biddle

Beaumont, Texas August 14, 1942 ― On this da/y United States Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that the Department of Justice was for the first time ever initiating legal action against two police officers, Clyde Brown and Billy S. Brown, of the Beaumont, Texas Police Department for Civil Rights violations. The charges were brought for violations of a soldier’s civil rights. 

On July 28^th of 1942 Private Charles J Reco boarded a city bus in Beaumont. The White driver forced him off the bus and into the vindictive and bigoted hands of Beaumont police who beat him badly

Private Reco was on leave and visiting family and friends. While the defense contractors had been desegregated nothing else had, Jim Crow was still in full effect in south Texas. Beaumont was going through a massive boom because the city had become one of the hubs for ship production for World War Two. Both Blacks and Whites had come to the city for work in the defense industry. The competition for jobs and housing exacerbated the existing racial tensions.

So, when Private Reco sat down he did sit in the “Negro Section” but apparently his knees stuck out over this idiotic racial barrier and the driver told Reco to move, since he was seated in the right section Reco told the driver where he could go with several profane adjectives. The driver then called the police.

Once stopped Reco got off the bus, and right into the nightstick of Officer Clyde Brown. Reco stumbled but did not go down and Brown hit him several more times, with enough force to break his hand. There were four officers waiting for Reco and he fought them when they tried to put him in their car. The police officer Billy S. Brown alleged that Reco had attempted to grab his revolver, so he shot Raco in self-defense. A third officer, Ben White also shot Reco. Even with four bullet wounds Private Reco was taken to the police station and charged with disturbing the peace and using abusive language, strangely he was not charged with violating the color line.

From the jail he was transported to the army hospital in Galveston where he healed all his wounds. Reco then requested to speak with superior officers about what happened and requested civil action.

When the charges were filed Beaumont representatives responded as you would expect with total lack of interest. The Chief or Police Ross Dickey stated he would have his officer’s back. “I’m not going to allow my men to get beaten up or cut up as they have in the past” Dickey said. He really wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The case progressed but Biddle wasn’t the man in charge. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas Steve M. King was the primary prosecutor. King wasn’t a novice he had been in his position since 1936 and had several big cases. He committed investigators to the case but hit a giant White wall. The bus driver J.M. Kirl insisted that not only was Reco profane and rude but threatened him with a knife. The Beaumont police provided minimum cooperation. Even though they spent 4 months trying to collect evidence of the brutality of the two officers, the grand jury refused to indict.

King held a news conference on January 16^th, 1943, to acknowledge that he couldn’t prosecute, “we’re lacking in the elements promising a successful prosecution.” King appeared to be frustrated knowing that bigotry and racism had again emerged victorious in the Jim Crow era.

This was confirmed when the Whites in Beaumont rioted against Blacks in June of 1943 as well as other threats and deaths that were racial motivated over the next 25 years.

Denied a Lynching Bloodthirsty Mobs Destroy Black Section of Springfield Illinois

A Black home in the "Badlands" of Springfield, Ill after White Riot

Springfield, Illinois, August 14-15 1908 ― A truth about lynching is that it is a crime driven by the need to commit the most extreme violence. The press of the Jim Crow era would often dress it up as a need for community justice, or necessary reprisal for a violent crime. Yet every lynching was extreme in its violence, especially in the early 20^th Century.

The so called “Race Riot” or “Race War” in Springfield, Illinois on this night was a prime example of bloodlust and the press trying to hide the worst of White violence toward Blacks.

It began in the afternoon when crowds of angry Whites began to gather in the city’s downtown near the jail. They were demanding that a man named George Richardson, who was accused of raping a White woman and Joe James accused of killing a White railroad engineer be turned over to them. The sheriff had heard the rumors and angry complaints for a few days and was preparing to move the two men out of the city.

For the period this preparation was a bit of surprise, even more surprising is that hearing the news from downtown Illinois Governor Charles Deneen called the sheriff to ask if he wanted the National Guard deployed. At 5 pm the sheriff thought this was probably unnecessary, later he was forced to rethink this. It was agreed though the governor would activate a complement of the guard and put them at the armory just outside the city.

As night began to fall the sheriff set off a false fire alarm a few blocks from the jail while he put the two prisoners into a car loaned to him by one of the city’s most prominent businessmen, theater owner George Loper. They took the two men to the train station where they sent them off to Bloomington at least until trial.

The transfer of the prisoners was successful, so successful in fact it represented a complete dismissal of the city’s White population. To the mob it meant that the Black man avoided their justice and that would mean they thought they were as good as the White citizens, it might mean other Blacks would too.

This was already a problem in Springfield. The White population felt threatened by Tthe Black population having their own hotels and boarding houses. Their own grocery and clothing stores. Perhaps worst there was a Black owned newspaper.

This type of independence created resentment in the White population that firmly believed all Blacks were to be subordinate. There was never a consideration that at least two-thirds of the Black population worked as laborers, porters, housemen and janitors. It was more threatening that any Black person would attempt to own something and be successful.

The two men escaping the mob was the last insult these White people could take, and it lit an explosion of hatred and rage. That discovered that Harry Loper had aided in the escape so they set fire to his car and restaurant. The mob, which is reported to be between 1,000 and 2,000 active rioters with a few thousand more hangers on watching events, moved south of downtown into the Black business district and they began systematically burning and looting.

At this point there was some Black resistance. Some Black shop owners and residents got to the 2^nd floor of their buildings and fired down on the mob with shotguns, and they threw bricks. This didn’t last long as the mob broke into a pawn shop and took all the guns and ammo they could.

 For two blocks every business was burned and nearly every Black person beaten before they were able to escape and run away. Entire store fronts were ripped apart and glass shattered.

As night turned into morning the mob moved into the Black residential area, the Badlands, and began running people out of their homes and setting them on fire. As morning broke on the 15^th the Black section was in ruins. The mob had broken up some and were in different sections. The governor had ordered the guard to break up the mob as the sheriff was ineffectual.

The first contact between the guard and mob was when the mob chased a couple of hundred Blacks into the arsenal. The guard came out with bayonets and fired above the crowd. Some dispersed, the rest when the guard rushed them, bayonets forward,

Early in the morning a segment of the mob found a Black barber and decided to set an example of him. His name was Scott Burton, and he owned his own shop, and his grandfather had been President Lincoln’s barber. The crowd decided to target Burton and burst into his home at 2:30 am, beating him and drug him out. They chanted, “Let’s see this Niger swing.” The mob had cut and mutilated Burton before hanging him and then setting his body on fire. I truly despicable murder.

The mob also set their sights on William K. H. Donigan, an eighty-four-year-old man shoemaker, who had built some significant wealth through the years and had married a White woman and moved into a White section of town. All these acts were considered terrible cultural attacks by a Black man snubbing his nose at the natural order. The mob had kidnapped him from his home, defenseless, due to age and rheumatism, they slit his throat ear to ear and hung him. Yet somehow, he survived overnight and died at the hospital a day later.

By the time of the Donigan hanging the militia was finally on the march through the city restoring order. Fortunately for the mob it was easy to fade from sight and go back to their regular lives. The Blacks had no life to go back to. While there were calls for justice at every level of government there wasn’t any appetite to actually fight for racial justice. 89 men were arrested and sent before a grand jury, that failed to advance charges.

The central Black district of the city suffered #150,000 dollars in damages and losses, the equivalent of $5.7 million in 2025. Two men were lynched, another four Blacks killed and 7 Whites, An unknown number of injuries. The hatred revealed displayed there was bigotry in the North equal to the South and was a prelude to the terrible Red Summer or 1919.

In 2024 President Biden signed a proclamation for the establishment of a national monument at the site of the attack.  The monument, is currently under construction, It will sit on land near Madison and 10th Street.

Sources:

https://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329622.html

https://visitspringfieldillinois.com/BlogDetails/History_of_the_Springfield_1908_Race_Riot

https://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329622.html

https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/Resources/310ee587-5442-444c-8165-7916f8903c85/springfield-race-riot-catalog.pdf

 

White Grand Jury Refuses to Indict the Murderers of Voting Rights Activist

Lamar Smith 

Brookhaven, Mississippi, August 13, 1955 ― Lamar (Ditney) Smith was murdered today in broad daylight. Smith is veteran and farmer here in Lincoln County. He served in Europe in World War One. Today he was helping other Blacks vote in person, so they were not intimidated Between the primary on August 2^nd and this Main vote on Aug 13 he has also helped people vote absentee.

Smith was a longtime member of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership; a civil rights group focused on voting. Today Smith was on the steps of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven guiding people with the process. The 63-year-old farmer was passionate about getting people to vote and defending them at the polls. In fact, his last words were, “No White man is big enough to run me out of Brookhaven,” then he was punched by a White man.

That White man based on a few accounts was apparently Noah Smith. Lamar Smith rolled with the punch on the courthouse lawn. When he came up, he took a stance of a fighting man and Noah Smith grabbed him they stood there punching each other. Then another White man walked up stuck a pistol close to his ribs and fired.

There were about 40 people on the grounds of the courthouse and most of them saw the drama unfold. Noah Smith, Charles Falvey, and Mack Smith had loudly objected to Smith’s actions saying he was acting like a Black man was equal to a White man. After the shot was fired and Lamar Smith collapsed, they fled.

Sheriff Robert E. Case saw that Noah Smith was covered in blood, so he detained the three men as suspects, however he let them go within the hour. The sheriff then interviewed most of the people who were at the courthouse, but he couldn’t get anyone to go on record. DA E.C. Barrow called for a grand jury for the 20^th of August. This also did not go well; the DA couldn’t present witnesses. Barrow then requested extra investigators from the governor who denied him.

In January 1956 a new DA tried again but even though he called 75 witnesses, just like the previous grand jury the witnesses said they saw nothing. This was a dark year for Blacks in Mississippi. George W. Lee, a grocery store owner and director of the local NAACP branch, was murdered in Belzoni, Mississippi, then on August 28 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed in Money, Mississippi.

After the murder of Till Dr T.R.M. Howard the President of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership questioned J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI and why were slow to find killers of African Americans in the South. This became a running battle of words in the newspapers since Hoover was thin skinned to any criticism.

The Department of Justice closed the federal case for Lamar Smith in 2010 without resolution, the reason given was that everyone involved in the case was dead.

 

Sources:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/smith-lamar-1892-1955/

https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/lamar-smith

https://mississippitoday.org/2024/08/13/1955-lamar-smith-murdered/

A White Couples’ Melodrama Ends with Murder and the Lynching of Five Negroes

Front Page of the Arkansas Democrat, Wednesday Aug 19, 1898

Clarendon, Arkansas, August 10, 1898 ― The years following the end of Reconstruction were terrible for African Americans across the south. Justice was about nonexistent for them and often for women

Few events highlight this as much as the 10 days between July 30 and Aug 10, 1898, when a woman named Mabel Orr had her husband killed after years of alleged abuse. John Orr was a prosperous businessman who owned a hardware store in town that was thriving and had some other investments.

The Orr’s had been married for eight years and had one daughter Geneva who was 4 years old. The Orrs had moved to Clarendon from Wisconsin, where they had been part of a touring theater company. They moved to Arkansas after John had decided for them it was time to become respectable. Which they did, both Orrs were welcomed in the most prominent homes and Mabel was the pianist for the Clarendon Methodist Church where her husband sang in the choir. He was a member of two fraternal organizations, and she did charity work. They appeared to be a happy, young couple on the way up.

Except of course they weren’t. Mabel Orr longed to return to the theater, she enjoyed being a performer. John refused, he wanted a traditional marriage and for their daughter to be raised in that conservative manner. The house cook, a Negro named Lorilla Weaver at the inquest that, “Mr. Orr was mean. he tried to force Miss May to accept his orders and start behaving as a wife should, he often slapped her full palm to the face.” Also, there were letters Mabel Orr had sent to her parents regarding how John Orr had blocked his wife from traveling and going home to Wisconsin.

Mabel Orr had developed a close friendship with a young woman, Rachel Morris, who loved hearing about the theater life. Sometime earlier in the year Rachel had moved into the Orr home. The friendship grew and they tried to find someone else for Mabel using Lorilla Weaver’s name with some matrimonial services, but this led nowhere. Finally, the two women decided John Orr would have to die for them to have any chance of going to New York and chasing their now shared dream.

Mabel Orr convinced her husband to take out $5,000 in life insurance through his fraternal clubs. This was going to be the traveling money. Mrs. Orr than convinced Lorilla Weaver to reach out to Dennis Ricord a local “hoodoo doctor and conjurer.” Ricord put together a concoction of boiled scorpion tails and snake’s heads to be added to John Orr’s food. Weaver added it to his coffee; it made him vomit but he recovered. Ricord said the silver in the man’s skin prevented his magic.

Frustrated Mrs. Orr and Rachel Morris got together and offered $200 to any servant of the household who would kill John Orr. Allegedly the first person was a porter and gardener Manse Castle but once given a shotgun he decided he had been to filled with bravado and tried to get Ricord to do the act. Ricord also refused but appeared at the Orr house with Will Sanders the son of Lorilla Weaver. Records say that Sanders agreed to shoot Mr. Orr for the $200.

On the night of July 30 John Orr returned home from choir practice at the Methodist Church. Normally he and Mabel would have been together but she had suffered illness all day and so she stayed home. That night when he came home John Orr said hello to his wife and went to the kitchen to make a glass of lemonade as was his habit. As he stood in the kitchen he was hit by a shotgun blast from the outside.

A deputy of the sheriff named Milwee sent word to the town of Binkley requesting Sheriff T.H. Jackson to end his vacation and rush home. Then Milwee started the investigation. Over the next few days Sheriff Jackson and his men tried to collect evidence but because there had been heavy rains the night of the shooting there was little evidence.

For the sheriff things did not look good as he had no suspects and no evidence to chase. However, there was still to be a coroner’s inquest as was the law in a suspected murder. On the second day of the inquest a prominent local man came forward requesting anonymity. He told the coroner and jurors that Mrs. Mabel Orr had been seated with him at a function several months earlier and had sent him a note asking if he could kill her husband. He said he was stunned by this and could not imagine why she felt this was acceptable.

The testimony apparently opened the vault. Next Weaver gave testimony that Mr. Orr’s had cut Mrs. Orr off from funds and she was wearing out her clothes. Weaver added that she had heard Rachel Morris and Orr talk about Mabel leaving Mr. Orr and going back to traveling theater. Rachel Morris took the stand and admitted Weaver’s testimony was correct, but to protect herself she said that she didn’t know who Orr might have made offers too. The house staff and Denis Ricord were all made to testify, as one might expect for the time the only ones arrested were the African Americans.

Word had started spreading about how the Negros had been arrested and how they must have forced Mrs. Orr to pay them. Many rumors spread around Clarendon and Monroe County. Finally, Mabel was arrested, and she confessed to wanting to be done with her husband but that her $200 offer was out of frustration and had spun out of her control. Knowing that she only had been arrested because each of her co-conspirators had been arrested and talked about her. That is except for Rachel Morris who had disappeared.

Mabel Orr then released a public statement, not a confession and not to clear her Black employees, most of whom had not been even tangentially involved in her husband’s murder. She released a statement regarding the dispensation of her home and the things she owned and to the welfare of her little girl Geneva. Then she took poison and lost consciousness.

The night of August 9^th a mob of 300 White men broke into the jail and confronted Deputy Sheriff Milwee. Sheriff Jackson was in bad health and was on his way back to Binkley. Milwee at first was able to hold off the mob by yelling into the jail that the men down there should hold off shooting the mob. He told them the sheriff had 25 deputies in the jail. This only worked for a few minutes until the mob realized the size of the jail and threatened to kill him, and he stepped aside. The mob grabbed Lorilla Weaver, Manse Castle, Will Sanders, Orr’s maid Susie Jacobs and Denis Ricord and marched them out of the jail and put nooses over them. Their last words were reported in some of the papers, it isn’t mentioned how, It is reported that Manse Castle said he was glad because he and the others deserved death. It is also reported that other Black residents joined the mob, but it was never reported that John Orr was especially friendly or respectful towards the Black community, so this is a bit suspect as a report.

The next morning the bodies were cut down from the front of Halpern Sawmill and taken to the coroner’s office. Where, as always anywhere a lynching occurred the final report said killed at the hands of persons unknown. The lynching made national news quickly and Arkansas Governor Daniel Webster Jones offered a $200 reward for each member of the lynch mob who was brought to justice. James Mitchell, editor of the Arkansas Democrat had taken a staunch anti-lynching position years prior and called the offer a mockery of those murdered. No one was ever arrested for participating in the mob violence.

Mabel Orr died on August 11^t, she never regained consciousness. Further proof of her plotting came on August 13^th when a love letter arrived at the Orr house addressed to Lorilla Weaver. It had been sent by the 23-year-old mayor of Caldwell, Ohio, Arthur Ogden Archer. Sheriff Jackson interviewed Archer but found nothing indicating he knew very much about Mrs. Orr, including the fact he didn’t know her real name. Archer went on to serve President Theodore Roosevelt in dealing with native affairs in Oklahoma.

After some legal arguments Geneva Orr did not go to live with her grandparents in Wisconsin but with her uncle and aunt. John’s sister and brother-in-law who lived in Kansas and had a son Geneva’s age. The family decided that this was the best placement for Geneva to have a happy life.

While the story of the Clarendon Lynching seems closer to a storyline from today’s true crime podcast or a primetime drama like Dynasty or Dallas it is just another story of a White mob murdering Blacks without evidence or trial. Another in the long inventory of tragedy by hands unknown.

Sources:

https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/clarendon-lynching-of-1898-7373/

https://www.argenweb.net/monroe/history/hisclare.htm

https://accessgenealogy.com/missouri/biography-of-arthur-ogden-archer.htm

• The Clarendon Lynching of 1898:: The Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender by Richard Buckelew

 

Tewa Pueblo Medicine Man Leads Only Successful Revolt Against Colonizers

Popé, marble statue by Cliff Fragua, 2005; in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Washington, D.C.

Santa Fe de Nuevo México (New Mexico, US), August 10, 1680 ― The Spanish colonizers were as greedy and predatory as any conquerors in history. As they expanded their reach into the Americas, they developed a code for the indigenous people called the Requerimiento (or “requirements”) for the lands they took possession of.

According to the requirements, intended to be read by conquistadors to the indigenous people, failing to submit would have dreadful consequences: “We will take you and your wives and children and make them slaves, and as such we will sell them, and will dispose of you...and will do to you all the harm and evil we can,” it read.

This doctrine, heavily based on the Catholic teachings and orthodoxy of the Spanish Inquisition, was strategic dogma to destroy the culture of the native people and replace it with the commitment to the Church's power and the Spanish monarchy's control. This was used wherever the empire developed colonies but was especially bad in the region of the Pueblo people. From 1540 when they first made contact in what is now Santa Fe until complete conquest in 1599 the Spanish waged war on the various Pueblo people, including genocide against the Acoma people. They enslaved 40,000 Puebloan people in their domain attempting to destroy the language and culture.

There is little historical record of the medicine man Popé before 1675. He was apparently from the San Juan Pueblo and was of the Tewa people. He rose to a position of prominence during the 1670s during a time of famine for his people. A drought in the southwest of what is now the United States made raising food difficult. The Spanish took most of the food for themselves.

Popé had a sense of purpose and felt a calling to keep to his people’s traditions. He was arrested and tried in 1675 for sorcery. While convicted he did avoid the death penalty and was publicly flogged. He then left Santa Fe and secretly made his way to Taos Pueblo far to the north. From there he organized using runners and interpreters. The region had six different languages and dialects including the Apache, Navajo and Hopi. It was difficult to do this organizing as the Pueblo people were not allowed to use horses. Popé did travel, often at night.

The rebellion began when Popé sent runners with chunks of rope to the chiefs and medicine men of the other tribes and pueblos. The native rose up in revolt as one on the night of August 10. They began by taking the horses securing them for their own future use. Then they set fire to all the churches and stripping missions of supplies and melting down the ornamentation. In Sante Fe they killed 43 priests and Franciscan friars. They sacked haciendas and drove 2,000 Spaniards from the region most went to El Paso.

Popé for all his great organizational skill wasn’t able to keep the unity. Over the next 12 years his role was reduced and the alliance collapsed. Regardless the revolt shook the Spanish who were already having problems elsewhere. When the Spanish came to reclaim the land the “requirements” were not as strictly followed, The relations had changed, forced labor and conversion were no longer the standard. No matter how it ended the fact is Popé led the revolt that saved the culture of the Pueblo.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/articles/pueblo-revolt-1680-popay

https://www.britannica.com/event/Pueblo-Rebellion

 

Suffragist Confront Senate Demanding Their Rights Stolen with America’s Entry into World War One

 

National Woman's Party Pickets at the White House 1917

Washington D.C., Aug. 9, 1917 —On this day the women of the National Women’s Party (NWP) were given the rare opportunity to testify in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee. The women were not there speaking on their main objective of the right to vote, but of the more central and guaranteed right to protest.

Since January of 1917 the NWP led by activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had been acting as “Silent Sentinels” and directing other women in silent picketing of the White House hoping to get President Woodrow Wilson to change his mind and back a Constitutional Amendment giving women the right to vote in the United States.

In meeting with the Senate committee, they hoped to convince the senators to provide them with an exemption from the Espionage Act passed in June. The Espionage Act was a broad law that allowed authorities to jail anyone they felt was interfering with the way the U.S. conducted the war, and this included any form of protest the war, the draft or the president.

The picketing had been ongoing with consistent attendance, and women it garnered attention. By August there were approximately 1,000 women involved in the picketing and 1,000 who came to support or jeer the women, all too often after the U.S. had entered the war the crowds were more aggressive and attacked the women protesting yelling, they were unpatriotic, duplicitous and anti-American. Every week the condemnation grew.

In part because under Paul’s direction the picketers began comparing Wilson to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany the primary enemy in most American’s opinion. During the summer of 1917 33 women had been arrested multiple times. The women shared this experience with the Senate committee. They also shared that they had been attacked and assaulted sometimes even by the military.

June also contained a surprise for Paul w3hich the Senate committee brought up several times in this hearing. Paul and 33 other women were arrested for “Obstructing Traffic,” and sentenced to 60 days in Occoquan Workhouse, in Lorton, Virginia. This was a jail for nonviolent offenders. After three days President Wilson pardoned them hoping that this act of goodwill would lead to reciprocal action from the NWP, but it did not.

The Senate Committee closed testimony and adjourned without an indication of what they would do, but it became obvious in the days ahead when there was no acknowledgment of the hearing. However, while there were 100s of arrests with women taken to Occoquan Workhouse there were no arrests were made using the Espionage Act.

As summer turned into fall arrests were made for obstructing traffic and unlawful assembly because the picketers continued to attract large and usually hostile crowds. Paul and Burns stopped directing the action to join the protestors in October. Paul later explained that this was strategic and to begin the next phase of action from prison. After her arrest she informed a municipal court judge that she had no obligation to obey laws when she had no part in the making of them. She was sentenced to seven months in Occoquan Workhouse for picketing at the White House.

She was joined by Burns and at least 45 others who demanded to be acknowledged as political prisoners. The women took another step and went on a hinger strike, refusing to eat. Prison authorities had no idea what to do and after consultations with psychiatrists ordered force feeding. On the night of November 14^th, a mob of prison guards assaulted and beat the women and used inhumane means to force feed them.

This brutal treatment was surreptitiously passed to newspapers with full accounts of the brutality, in turn, this garnered public sympathy and support for suffrage despite public sentiment that criticism of the government during World War I was unpatriotic.

This proved to be the turning point. In January President Wilson ordered all suffragists be released and announced his support for suffrage. On January 10, 1918, the House of Representatives voted in favor of the suffrage amendment, The Senate voted in favor a year later. Almost exactly three years after being unable to convince the Senate committee to endorse their right to protest, the suffragettes saw the 19^th Amendment ratified.

 

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-paul

https://depts.washington.edu/moves/NWP_project_ch3.shtml

https://www.crusadeforthevote.org/nwp-militant#:~:text=In%201917%2C%20they%20renamed%20their,D.

 

Three Black Men Murdered in an Arkansas Labor and Race Fight

 

Mena. Arkansas 1896

Mena, Arkansas, Aug. 6, 1896 — The irony of an unwelcome and unwanted group of people attacking another wasn’t something most of the people in Western Arkansas would have noticed at this time.

The railroad was moving through Western Arkansas connecting the region to the Gulf Coast and the stackyards of Kansas City. The Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad was building the line, and they were using the cheapest labor they could find and this included newly arrived immigrants from Italy, Hungary and Swedish who were hired and dozens of Black workers. These new White Americans had picked up some of America’s oldest and worst habits, racism.

Mena was a brand-new city established in1896 as a stop on the line of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad. The owner of the railroad, Arthur E. Stilwell, was constructing a line the to move steel from
Pittsburgh to the Gulf and return with goods that could be sold anywhere. The new town of Mena was to be a major stop and was positioned to help get settlers into Oklahoma Territory and the hill county of Arkansas.

Apparently, the railroad and Stilwell were not aware of the racial animus in Polk County and the rather extreme bigotry of the residents. It was the practice of the railroad to hire both immigrants and Blacks to do the labor building the railroad, although often they did hire more Black laborers.

On the night of the Aug 6^th a Black labor camp constructed by the railroad was invaded by White men. They were armed and assaulted the workers and drive them out of the camp and pursued them through the evening. This attack led to the death of three Black men and severe injuries to eight more.

This assault was led by many of the European immigrants, because one of the easiest and quickest ways to gain trust of the nativists was to attack Blacks. The immigrants often dealt with prejudice directed at them by White citizens. The prejudice was much the same as what was directed towards the Africans. Established White citizens were fearful that the Europeans had a character that leaned toward indolence and crime.

Often, especially in the south, the quickest route to assimilation and building trust with the dominate White culture was to join them in the resentment and violence towards Blacks.

The next day the railroad had another car full of Black laborers arrived in the new city on Mena and were met in the town of Horatio by the Sheriff of Siever County and some deputized men, they escorted them to the Polk County line where that sheriff escorted them to the other side of the county and insisted, they leave. Polk County was established as a “Sundown” county that afternoon.

The Arkansas Gazette printed an anonymous quote, "Polk County citizens say they have no negroes there no will they permit them to come and work on the railroad.” Yet the railroad continued to try to bring in Black laborers because of their belief that they were the best workers. Violence wasn’t always the end result , but it was often enough. Particularly the lynching of Peter Berryman in 1901.

 It was reported in the New York Times an a handful of other newspapers with a national standing reported that the “Leaders” of the raid on the work camp were arrested but interestingly enough there is nothing in the Arkansas papers regarding these arrests or any court cases. The three men who were killed were never identified and buried in the potter’s field outside Mena.

Sources:

https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/polk-county-race-war-of-1896-7390/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23188017.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae061730a127f38810db62cd0eb634d58&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1

https://robbauerbooks.com/2021/09/22/the-polk-county-race-war-of-1896-arkansas/

 

Mob Lynches Black Man Then Orders Others Blacks Out of Town for Objecting

 

Runge, Texas. Aug. 6, 1907 — Racial terror could be quite leisurely and hardly cause any notice, as it was last night when 35-year-old Tom Hall was lynched from a tree in front of the jail.

Hall was arrested yesterday for the alleged crime of either frightening two “Little” White girls with some insulting remarks or attempting to assault two “Young” White women neat the stable in Runge, a small supply town 60 miles southeast of San Antonio. The town had a cotton gin, a lumberyard, a livery, sheet metal works and train depot all of which served the local cotton growers, farming and ranching families.

Whether Hall had done anything or not isn’t reported in the nearby Palestine, Texas newspaper, or the Houston and San Antonio papers. What is reported is that the “Black Fiend” was found hanging from a tree in front of the jail. It was reported that a mob had broken into the jail overnight and drug Hall out without any resistance, it seems there was no one else in the jail or at least no deputies or jailers.

The newspapers were much more delighted to report that some of the local negros had expressed disgust and were offended that a mob had lynched a Black man. “A great deal of excitement prevailed here this morning,” the Houston Post reported. “Some of the Negroes in town seemed offended by the lynching and made remarks about it. A mob was formed to rush them out of town.”

Whether this would have happened or not is questionable as Runge was an unusual town having more Black and Mexican residents than Whites at the time, although the Whites owned all the businesses in town. In fact, Karnes County, Texas has a moderate history of racial terror compared to much of the rest of the state as Hall is only the third lynching ever recorded in the region.

Sources:

https://www.lynchingintexas.org/items/show/83#&gid=1&pid=1

https://www.lynchingintexas.org/items/show/83

Slocum Texas: Another Racial Massacre That Officials Tried To Hide From The Citizens

 

Slocum, Texas, July 29^th, 1910 — Witnesses, both Black and White, stated that it seemed like hunting season for the Negroes who had built successful lives in Slocum. “The White men are shooting people like they were sheep,” Anderson County Sheriff William Black told a reporter for the Houston Chronicles.

Another day another atrocity against Black Americans by White Americans.

Racial tensions in Anderson County were extreme because many Blacks had started to have success, and they found it easier to invest their income and begin to build wealth and independence. In Slocum, an organized but unincorporated town in the Southeastern part of the county. Whites resented the financial success of these Blacks and their ownership of land.

Racial tensions had been building after a Black man was lynched in neighboring Cherokee county. From there events seemed to spiral out of control. Whites began mobilizing for violent action after a White farmer couldn’t collect a debt from a respected Black farmer. The debt was in dispute with Mr. Abe Wilson, the Black farmer saying he had paid in full. Also, Whites also took the placement of a Black man as one of the lead salesmen on a road building project as an event of great disrespect. Whites were angry but also afraid, the world wasn’t right to them, the natural order disrupted and rumors that the Blacks were having secret meetings and collecting guns on how to overthrow the White majority and kill them.

One farmer, Jim Spurger, had been trying to agitate events by telling everyone that Wilson had stolen from the farmer named Redin Alford. Spurger also told some sketchy tales about being threatened by armed Black men, stories he presented without names or places.

The conditions were sadly perfect for angry bigoted White men to do what they do, start a reign of terror. The White men in Slocum sent off telegrams requesting other Whites come to Slocum with guns to help their fellow White men defend their lives, they had also spread this request through word of mouth. Over the next 24 hours men came from Palestine, Elkhart, Neches, Cayuga and other spots. It wasn’t hard in the Jim Crow era to gather Whites willing to kill Blacks just to kill Blacks.

Primed by local papers that reported every minor incident Blacks had been accused of while defending all White landowners. These papers frequently published ghoulish and appalling front page stories of lynchings both in Texas and the rest of the South. Anderson County was a hot spot for this violence with 6 lynchings in 1910 prior to the massacre.

The attack began about noon when at least 200 armed White men started shooting at any Black person. They killed at least four with this first volley and then began sweeping the town killing any Black person they saw. The evening newspaper in Palestine stated it was a “Race War” still attempting to make the Blacks being slaughtered as equals in violence.

Anderson County Sheriff William Black left Palestine at 5 a.m. with a posse to try and make peace. He was not alone as District Court Judge Benjiman Howard Gardner had ordered all the saloons in Palestine closed the day before. Gardner had also ordered a contingent of National Guard Troops led by Capt. Godfrey Reese Fowler to aid in ending the violence and to assist in cleaning up. Texas Governor Thomas Campbell ordered in a contingent of Texas Rangers to help keep the peace and support Sheriff Black.

In the days that followed saw 13 White men arrested by either the Rangers or Black and his deputies. Some faced multiple murders after a grand jury was convened, yet they never went to trial. There is no official number of Black deaths, the papers reported broad numbers from 8 to 22. Men like Sheriff Black estimated at least 40. It was easy to lose bodies, especially after a mass grave was dug. Oral traditions by survivors say 200 were killed.

Texas ignored the truth of the massacre for years. They finally added a brief note in the textbooks on Texas history texts in 2011 and an historical marker was placed on site in 2015.

Sources:

https://www.teachslocummassacre.org/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-slocum-massacre-1910/

https://www.nytimes.com/1910/07/31/archives/score-of-negroes-killed-by-whites-eighteen-bodies-already-found-in.html

Once Welcomed as Heroes Impoverished World War Veterans in Washington D.C. Become the Enemy.

Headline to the Baltimore Evening Sun on July 29, 1931

Washington, D.C. July 28, 1932 — World War One veterans who did not stay in the U. S. Military or had mustered out after service were given parades to honor their sacrifices on the Western Front and the trenches of Europe. In 1924 the leaders of the United States also agreed to provide to for survivors purely cash payment for services.

The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 was a piece of negotiated legislation as financial reward for those who had served at both the home front and those who served in Europe. These bonuses were set at a maximum of $500, $1.00 per day served in the states and $1.25 for those who served in Europe. The American Legion was a strong promoter of the bill and advocating for immediate distribution of these funds, which did not happen. Congress agreed that veterans who were owed less than $50 would be paid but that the nation couldn’t afford mass pay outs, it was finally agreed to extend the payments to 1945.

This was fine politically at that moment but as 1932 came on the nation was in the most severe part of the Depression, and men who had served in the military found themselves struggling to find consistent employment to take care of their families. A demand began growing for the government to disperse the funds owed to tA man named Walter W. Waters became an unexpected leader of the “Bonus Army.” Waters was a former Sargent who served in France and had seen combat at Saint Mihiel and Chateau-Thierry in the great war. He was a native of Oregon who had returned to Oregon from Europe. The depression had hit the lumber industry of the Northwest extremely hard. Waters was struggling to find ongoing, regular employment and was using a food cart to sell fruit. He was doing these odd jobs when he started recruiting men to march on Washington to demand their money. 

Word spread around the country, mostly through the American Legion, of the march and the charismatic Waters. Soon 20,000 to 40,000 men of the Bonus Army were living in Washington D.C. with the substantial number of men they took over two of the “Hoovervilles”. The “Bonus Army” was becoming the symbol for the forgotten man. Or laborer with Water glorifying in this image.

With close to 80,000 additional people in the city, Waters tried to take advantage and take over complete control. He outed the Communists, anarchists, and radicals and arranged for several hundred men to march in military order and in khakis when they did their daily or every other day peaceful march on the Capitol Building or the Whitehouse. He and the Bonus Army had a strong and staunch ally in DC police superintendent, Brigadier General Pelham D. Glassford. Glassford was commander of the 51st Field Artillery Brigade during the war. 

The army awarded Glassford the Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Star for conduct in Europe. He identified with the veterans and lobbied Congress on his own for both the Bonus Payout and for additional food. This action was voted down by the Senate under the threat of veto from Hoover who was opposed to paying anything out to the veterans.

After the bills to release funds to the “Bonus Army” failed to pass in June incursions and fights began to breakout with greater frequency. The men making up the protest was not sure how to move forward but most of them didn’t want to leave without their money.

Things came to head, today, July 28 when Hoover, who found the term “Hoovervilles” insulting and demeaning ordered General Douglas MacArthur to remove the camps on the Anacostia River that he could see. MacArthur was pleased to launch an effort to remove them.

When action to evict the veterans began, they themselves fought back using guns with batons. This is when MacArthur ordered tear gas to be used. He had also ordered 5 tanks into firing positions on Pennsylvania Avenue. This was what Glassford had feared, and the situation became a bloody riot. One of the veterans was killed, 14 others badly injured and a toddler belonging to a veteran family was killed by the tear gas. As he would in the future, MacArthur felt he knew better than anyone else from Glassford who had been out daily to speak with protesters to Hoover who realized that the violence would come back to haunt him.

MacArthur denied he had received orders not to advance to the opposite side of the Anacostia River. MacArthur not only ignored the President’s but insisted that his job was to rid D.C. of the Bonus Army; and had ordered the tanks to crush the camps beneath their treads. Against any evidence MacArthur stated that he knew that only 10% of these protesters were even veterans. He argued, “The shantytown was animated by the essence of revolution.”

Hoover released a statement saying that investigation had proven that a large minority of the “So called Bonus Marchers,” were Communists or persons with criminal records. Hoover insisted that the good men had gone home and probably did not know the type of person with whom they were involved.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for president for the first time in 1932. Allegedly while reading the reports on the eviction, he told an aide there was no longer any need for him to campaign against Herbert Hoover. Which did prove to be true as the Depression hung on through the election with no signs of economic recovery.

However, FDR was no friend to the Bonus Army, vetoing a bill to pay them in 1936. His Veto was overridden through and stated that an. “able bodied soldier should be accorded privileges just because of he is wearing a uniform.” FDR also reappointed MacArthur as Army Chief of Staff which created a loss of respect for the President from veterans,

 

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/1935/05/23/archives/highlights-of-bonus-veto.html

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/11/bonus-army-veterans-washington-dc-walter-waters/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-1932-bonus-army.htm

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/macarthur-bonus-march-may-july-1932/

Walter W. Water