Mob Lynches Black Woman For Protecting Herself From A White Man

 

Wagoner County, Oklahoma, March 31, 1914 — Overnight, another Black child was murdered by persons unknown for the terrible crime of defending herself.

Marie Scott, a 17-year-old Black girl, stabbed a young White man, Lemuel Peace, in the heart. The young man was part of a group of young White men who entered “The Bottoms” or the “Negro Section” of town at 12:30 am. Why these young White men were in that section of town is left unstated in most news stories. The Princton of Mercer County in Missouri, though, reported that the boys had been dancing at a juke in that part of town.

At the time of his death, no one cared why these White boys or men were in the Bottoms. They cared that he was dead and that his companions had helped take Marie Scott into the custody of the sheriff. The Peace family is one of the more prominent families in Mercer County.

Marie Scott was brought to jail late in the morning on Monday. She was going to be charged with the young man’s murder. The mob decided that it wasn’t necessary. About 1:00 in the morning on Tuesday, Jailer P.J. Turner, a man in his sixties it was reported, heard a knock on the jail door and when he went to investigate he was met by a mob of about 20 men all armed.

The mob ordered Turner to sit in the corner of a cell while they pulled Marie Scott from the jail. Turner later said that she screamed and fought as they dragged her off. They didn’t go far as about two blocks away they found a telegraph pole and threw a rope over it and pulled her up.

About two hours later, the sheriff found her body swinging from the pole. He cut her down, and the coroner came to pick up the body. He held an inquest and reported that he found a gunshot wound to her head.

It was reported that there was to be an investigation, but this was the Jim Crow era, and even though Oklahoma wasn’t in the deep south, White mobs were not subjected to any consequences. In this case, because Scott apparently was a stranger who stabbed a well-known young White man, there was no justice to be found.

 

San Francisco Police Try To Cover-Up Assaults At Lesbian Bar by Off-Duty Officers

Marchers in the June 1979 San Francisco Pride Parade

San Francisco, California, March 31, 1979 — Off duty police officers celebrating the marriage of fellow officer Bernard Shaw at his “stag” party went looking for more celebration after the party broke up.

So 15 men forced their way into the well-known lesbian bar Peg’s Place next door. The entry of intoxicated men was not a welcome event, especially when they knocked down the doorwoman and assaulted bartender Alene Lavine, who told them to leave.

Bar owner Linda Symaco also tried to stop the men and was attacked with a pool cue. Witnesses said the police were yelling they were going to get the dykes and started trying to tear the bar apart. Women patrons did their best to stop them and told the intruders that the police were on their way; the off-duty cops were said to have laughed and told the bartender they were the cops.

Uniformed men did come and did force their fellow officers out of Peg’s Place. However, getting the men out of the bar was just part of the problem for the police. Soon, there were accusations of cover-up by the San Francisco Police Department because of how the assaults were handled. Two officers were charged, as well as a civilian.

Officer Daniel Marr was allowed to leave that night, even though he was allegedly the man who wrestled Lavine to the floor, injuring her. Lavine was hurt badly enough that she had a 10-day stay in the hospital. Officer Andrew Citizen was also let go that night, even though witnesses said he was beating a woman named Katherine Miller. An officer, Mike Kelly, choked Symaco, who spent 17 days in the hospital, according to witnesses spoken to by the media. Intoxicated civilian Kevin Guerin was allowed to leave the scene.

The night of the incident, there were no arrests of the invading men, no statements taken, after what was another in a string of violent attacks on the LBGTQ community since the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Board Supervisor Harvey Milk by former Board Supervisor and policeman Dan White. The murders divided the city as White was a popular supervisor and had a lot of support, especially by people who were bigoted towards gays.

Symaco, Laving, and Miller hired legal representation in the form of Tom Steel, who had a history of fighting for gay civil rights. Their lawsuit initiated an investigation by the Police Chief and anger from Mayor Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein and District Attorney Joseph Frietas.

“I assumed the chief would have assigned a vigorous investigation,” said Freitas in an interview. “I assure you I will not assume things about the chief again.”

Officer Marr and Citizen were eventually charged with battery and disturbing the peace, as was the civilian Guerin. These were misdemeanors; Officer Mike Kelly was not charged with anything after assaulting Symaco. Marr ended up being the only one convicted, and he had to pay a $1,000 fine and do 200 hours of community service. Both officers received short suspensions but kept their jobs.

While the LBGTQ community was enraged by these soft charges, the San Francisco Police Officers Association felt that these charges were egregious. SFPOA Vice-president Paul Chignell spent two years speaking out against the mayor, DA, and Police Chief Charles Gain. Chignell acted as an enemy of Frietas because the DA was hard on police officers who crossed the line.

The assault on Peg’s Place joined an ever-growing list of violent events towards gays that began to change public perception. While the AIDS epidemic was just a few years away, the violent events of the 1970s showed the often-vicious prejudice the gay community faced.

Symaco, Lavine, and Miller got some justice for their injuries and the threats they received in 1985 when the San Francisco Police Commission paid them $75,000 in restitution.

 

Sources:

https://archive.org/details/BAR_19790426/mode/2up

https://tinyurl.com/ereyxvf4

https://tinyurl.com/48jmcxf6

https://sfpoa.org/journal_archives/POAJournal_Feb2013.pdf

Klan Murders A White Woman Who Dared To March With Blacks for Voting Rights in Alabama

 

Viola Liuzzo in a family portrait and working with marchers in Selma, AL 

Lowndes County, Alabama, March 25, 1965— A Detroit mother was murdered by the Klan on this day because she believed in equality and justice and came to Alabama to march with Blacks protesting for their civil rights.

Viola Liuzzo was described by her husband as someone “who fought for everyone’s rights. She was a champion for the underdog.” Liuzzo had come to Selma to help marchers in any way she could. She had told her husband, “its everyone’s fight,” the evening she left to drive to Alabama to help protesters in the Selma to Montogomery March.

Liuzzo grew up in segregated Tennessee, and this formed her views on civil rights. An active member of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, she was familiar with organized protests and the problems in Alabama. She had left Detroit after witnessing the events of “Bloody Sunday,” on March 7^th, when police and vigilantes attacked Black marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to stop them from marching to Montogomery to protest their inability to vote due to poll taxes and poll tests.

On March 25^th, the protest had climaxed, and demonstrators were breaking up in too small groups and looking for ways home. Liuzzo agreed to shuttle people back to Selma and was riding with a young Black man, 19-year-old Leroy Moton. He had agreed to help drive if she needed it. After dropping some people in Selma Liuzzo and Moton were headed back to Montgomery on State Highway 80 when they picked up a tail.

Earlier in the day, Ku Klux Klan members had gathered at Silver Moon Café. They had been keeping the protest under surveillance under orders from their Klavern in Birmingham. When they left Selma to head back to Montgomery, they saw Liuzzo’s green Oldsmobile. The car had Michigan plates, and Moton was sitting in the front seat with Liuzzo. This triggered them because it was everything they hated about the civil rights movement, outsiders, and race mixing. So, they followed. Moton said that Liuzzo was singing “WE Shall Overcome” when the car caught them, even though they were going down the two-lane road at nearly 100 miles an hour. Even at the speed, the Klansmen pulled alongside and shot into the car, instantly killing Liuzzo, the car wrecked knocking Moton out. When he woke up, he flagged down a passing truck and notified the authorities in Selma.

Within 24 hours, President Lyndon Johnson had appeared on television to report the arrest of three Klan members for Liuzzo’s murder.  Eugene Thomas, Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr., and William Orville Eaton had all been arrested. A fourth man, Gary Rowe, had not been since he was an FBI informant.

Rowe went on to testify against the men in three trials. Although he had been recruited to infiltrate the Klan in 1959, he was also being recruited by the Klan, in his time as an informant Rowe hade been under superstition many times including for providing the dynamite or even that he built the bombs that killed four little girls in the 1963 the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. Rowe, though, was protected by the FBI on orders from director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover took the civil rights movement and protests personally and felt certain that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist agent trained to disrupt America. Hoover was concerned that the high-profile murder could lead the press to find out about Rowe, and that would make the FBI culpable in not just the murder of Liuzzo but other activities.

Liuzzo’s body was flown back to Detroit on the private plane of Teamster’s president, Jimmy Hoffa, and met by her family. Liuzzo’s husband was a business manager for the Teamsters in Detroit at the time of the murder. The funeral was held on March 30^th at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Detroit. It was attended by Dr. King, future congressman John Lewis, and NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins. Also, by Michigan Lt. Governor William G. Milliken. Hoffa and United Auto Workers Union President Walter Reuther.

Despite the high-profile individuals at the funeral or perhaps because of it, crosses were burned the next night in Detroit, including on the Liuzzo’s lawn. For at least the next two years, the family had security at their home both extended police presence and private security. Despite this, the Liuzzo children were bullied and taunted at school.

This was made worse as trial preparations began, and the Klan, the lawyer for the three accused men, and the FBI all seemed to work in tandem to smear Liuzzo’s reputation. Rumors and stories were spread that Mrs. Liuzzo had been a heroin user and had abandoned her family to have sexual relations with Black men.

At the state trials, these rumors and the bias present in the jury resulted in a hung jury in the accused's first trial after just 6 hours. A second trial led to a verdict of innocent by an all-White male jury. If left at that level, there would be no justice. Fortunately, President Johnson’s Department of Justice decided to bring federal charges against the three Klan members for conspiring to violate the civil rights of Mrs. Liuzzo. They were convicted and each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The murder of Viola Liuzzo became a transcendent moment in the Civil Rights cause. She became a martyr for the movement, and it was her murder that led Johnson to declare war on the Klan and bring Hoover to heel by ordering the director to engage in enforcing the Civil Rights Act. It is also believed by most historians that Liuzzo’s murder was the push to get the Civil Rights Act passed.

In the aftermath of the murder Leroy Moton became an agitator and hard worker for the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Council to help to register voters in Illinois, Michigan, and Georgia. In interviews, he said that for years he had guilt and wondered why he survived when a mother of 5 didn’t. He died quietly at age 78 in 2023 at his son’s home in Hartford, Connecticut.

Rowe would become a highly controversial figure for the rest of his life. He was subpoenaed to appear before a Congressional Committee. He was prepared to make the FBI the wrongdoers in his life and testified that they never attempted to stop his violence against Blacks. He received immunity and went into the witness protection program even though he acknowledged attacking freedom riders and killing a Black man. He wrote a book about his time undercover that was turned into a TV Movie in 1979.

The Liuzzo family sued the FBI for the death of Liuzzo and associated damages. On May 27, 1983, Judge Charles Wycliffe Joiner rejected the claims, saying there was "no evidence the FBI was in any type of joint venture with Rowe or conspiracy against Mrs. Liuzzo.” 

In the decades since Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe, her brother Anthony and sister Sally have taken every opportunity to tell the world of the heroism and compassion of their mother, as well as the pain experienced by their family following her death and the subsequent smear campaign against her character. They have dedicated their lives to destroying the image Hoover had tried to create.

 

Leroy Moton in 1965 and 2023

Sources:

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/03/27/101535542.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-montgomery-selma-viola-liuzzo-kkk-civil-rights/63907002

https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/liuzzo-viola-0

https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/texts/viola-liuzzo

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/local/selma50/2015/03/08/liuzzos-children-know-played-pivotal-role/24631939/

 

 

19 Innocents Killed After Puerto Rico Governor Orders Police to Fire on Peaceful Protesters

 

Clinica Pila Massacre by Carlos Torres Morales of "El Imparcial", 1937

Ponce, Puerto Rico, March 21, 1937 — This Palm Sunday turned into a bloody day of terror for peaceful marchers who had gathered in Ponce, Puerto Rico to protest the imprisonment of Puerto Rican independence activist Pedro Albizu Campos.

Campos had been imprisoned for conspiracy and sedition against the United States after the assassination of police commander Colonel E. Francis Riggs, a former United States Army officer who was killed by nationalists. Although there was no evidence of Albizu Campos’ involvement he was a marked man for his nationalist and union activities.  Most importantly when he had led an island-wide strike by sugar cane workers which had paralyzed the U.S. sugar production. Albizu Campos had won a great victory for the workers getting a guaranteed wage increase from 45 cents to $1.75 per 12-hour day.

Before the protest organizers had gotten legal permits from Ponce Mayor José Tormos Diego. These were not required permits based on a 1926 Puerto Rican Supreme Court Ruling, but as a courtesy to Tormos Diego, they had requested the permit.

However, upon learning about the planned march U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, General Blanton Winship decided it could not be permitted. The U.S. Government did not think Puerto Rico's independence was in the national interest, and he personally thought it his mission to crush any nationalist activity and their leadership. He had personally directed the island’s Insular Police force to use intimidation activities against the rank and file of the nationalist groups. To this end, he had militarized them and put American Riggs in charge.

The demonstrators had decided on Ponce for their march because there was already a parade to honor the 1873 outlawing of slavery on the island. Ponce was full of many planned celebrations on March 21 and Winship had used his authority to cancel them all.

An hour before activities began, he issued this order, and further ordered Insular Police Chief, Colonel Enrique de Orbeta to increase police presence in Ponce and stop the demonstration by “any means necessary.” de Orbeta took this seriously and brought in additional forces from across the island and armed them with riot gear and machine guns.

The parade started with a playing of La Borinqueña (the Puerto Rican national anthem). Marchers had not been notified that Winship had canceled the parade. They were all dressed in their holiday dress and held palm fronds.

Guillermo Soldevilla, police chief of the municipality of Juana Díaz, and 14 officers had taken a position in front of the crowd. They were armed with Thompson submachine guns and tear gas bombs. 11 other policemen armed with machine guns were just to the east on another street and on the west were 12 police armed with rifles. There were at least 200 officers armed with riot clubs.

Before La Borinqueña had finished playing shots hit the gathered crowd. They fired on them for at least 15 minutes, not allowing anyone to break away. Once this mass firing ceased the protesters tried to run. They were chased down alleys and blocked from leaving the Clinica Pila, which was the heart of Ponce. Once the fire of the guns had finished the police chased people with the clubs and beat them severely.

At the end of the assault 19 were dead, including a 7-year-old girl. Over 200 were wounded either by the heavy gunfire or the clubbing. Many never recovered from their injuries. During the massacre survivors witnessed a young Nationalist named Bolívar Márquez use his own blood to write "Viva la República, Abajo los Asesinos" (English: "Long live the Republic, down with the Murderers!") on the wall of the Hospital Metropolitano Dr. Pila.

Chief de Orbeta immediately realized that the events had gone wrong and grabbed Ángel Lebrón Robles, a photographer for the newspaper El Mundo. The chief used the photographer to stage some photos that made the massacre look necessary, using his own dead officers.

This didn’t work at all. All the newspapers on the island wrote the truth but several in mainland American cities printed misinformation provided by Winship. In those stories, he claimed all the deaths were caused by Nationalists.

This attempt at a cover-up partially failed when reports kept coming out of the level of violence by the police on Palm Sunday. The United States Commission on Civil Rights led by the ACLU's Arthur Garfield Hays, together with Puerto Rican citizens found that events on Palm Sunday constituted a massacre and mob action by the police. 

However, there were never any convictions of any police involved. Winship continued to put pressure on the nationalists. He survived an assassination attempt in 1938 that made him even more brutal. There was one lone voice demanding justice in the mainland, New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio had thousands of Puerto Rican immigrants in his district and refused to let the incident go. Assisted by Minnesota Congressman John T. Bernard he pressed on until President Roosevelt replaced Winship in 1939.

Yet like so many other events in U.S. History, there were never any official consequences or sanctions against the police or any authorities who committed mass murder of unarmed citizens.

The message "Viva la República, Abajo los Asesinos" (English: "Long live the Republic, Down with the Murderers!") was written in blood by cadet Bolívar Márquez Telechea before he died.

Sources: 

https://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/22/remembering_puerto_ricos_ponce_massacre

https://libcom.org/article/ponce-massacre-1937

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/03/22/94345098.html?pageNumber=1

Courthouse Massacre Displays How Absolute Mississippi System of White Supremacy Was

The Interior and Exterior of the Carrol County Courthouse in Carrollton, Mississippi

Carrolton, Mississippi March 17, 1886 — James Liddell was an attorney and newspaper publisher with a near pathological hatred of Black people, he also was absolute in his belief Black people should always be subservient to Whites.

On March 17, 1886, 23 black people were murdered because of Liddell’s unshakable racism. He organized the horrifying event because he felt two Black men, brothers Ed and Charley Brown were being arrogant. They had the audacity to press attempted murder charges against him after an incident on February 12^th where Liddell shot at both men over a minor incident with a friend even earlier in January.

That incident involved the Brown brothers, who were in the delivery business. They were delivering molasses to a saloon in Carrollton when they accidentally bumped into Robert Moore a White businessman from a neighboring town. While Moore was angry, he settled with the Brown brothers amicably and had no further complaints.

It was Liddell who was incensed by what happened. On February 12^th in Carrollton, he confronted the Browns accusing them of attacking Moore and deliberately spilling molasses on him. During the confrontation things became physical between Liddell and Ed Brown, however, onlookers and witnesses separated the men and prevented further fighting.

Liddell left the scene after this intervention and went down the street to a tavern for food. During his dinner, someone reported to him that the Browns were making vulgar remarks about Liddell to other Blacks. Liddell left his dinner and once more confronted the Browns. A shooting soon followed with both Liddell and Ed Brown reporting injuries. There was no record of who shot first or what the injuries were.

The next morning the Browns responded by pressing assault charges against Liddell. While Blacks had few rights in the Jim Crow era in Mississippi they did have this right. Apparently, most White people did not know this, or if they did they never believed a Black person would have the courage to disrespect a White man that much.

Liddell and his friends and many White residents of Carrollton were incensed about what they took as disrespect from Negroes. Word spread through the community that such an effrontery. So they began plotting against the Brown brothers.

The trial of the Brown vs Liddell was set to begin on March 17 at the Carrol County Courthouse in Carrollton. The morning of the trial the courtroom filled with both Blacks and Whites both groups ready to witness the proceedings. This is when a group of 70 white men, including Liddell made their statement. They plowed into the courthouse through the four doors and with rifles started firing into the gathered Blacks.

After emptying their weapons, the mob mounted their horses and rode away. They left behind 23 dead. They had killed people trying to escape through the windows or emptied their guns into dead victims. No Whites were even injured in the attack.

The vicious attack made news not only in Mississippi but around the county. Reading the old newspapers there is a clear line between defending the White men of Carrollton in the smaller local papers of the state and the large national publications.

The large papers such as the New Orleans Picayune spread the story and it hit the wire services. These stories were written detailing the massacre and presenting the negros who died or were injured as the victims. This led to editorials expressing outrage in papers in Boston, New York, Cleveland, and California. Even in Toronto and Montreal and England, there were expressions of anger about the appalling incident.

To read the smaller papers in Vicksburg, Grenada, and Jackson reported that the negros had fired first. They reported that James Liddell had been badly wounded in the initial brawl. These papers didn’t have more than two stories regarding the massacre and in those stories the Blacks were painted as the aggressors from the time they first encountered Moore, saying they had painted him with molasses.

Only The Clarion in Jackson, Mississippi broke with this wall of misinformation. The Clarion editor wrote an opinion column saying, “To such considerations, we can close our eyes and our ears; but we cannot be blind or deaf to the appeals of the weak who claim and deserve our protection, nor can we be unmindful of the indelible blot that has been put upon the reputation of the State.”

This call was not heard by the Mississippi authorities. Carroll County took no action, no coroner’s inquest was ordered, and no grand jury was empaneled. Mississippi Governor Robert Lowry openly blamed the victims. “The riot was provoked and perpetrated by the outrage and conduct of the Negroes,” was his only statement. Congressional representative Hernando De Soto Money and Senator James Z. George, both from Carrollton, spoke out in opposition to any further action. This wall of silence hid the massacre from history for decades, even though the bullet holes were still visible until renovations were done to the courthouse in 1992, at that time a plaque was hung memorializing the victims.

 

Sources: https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/mississippi-murder-mystery/

http://ah.ms.gov/issue/the-carroll-county-courthouse-massacre-1886-a-cold-case-file

https://mscivilrightsproject.org/carroll/event-carroll/carrollton-courthouse-massacre/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/carroll-county-courthouse-massacre-1886/

 

 

Army Officers Find It Funny to Dress As Klan For Party With Black Soldiers

SFC Alonzo A. Galloway, age 80,

 Darmstadt, West Germany, March 11, 1965 — The United States Army has announced they have finished their inquiry into the 16 officers who dressed as Ku Klux Klansmen and displayed a mock burning cross at a masquerade party for the Fasching celebration (German pre-Lenten carnival) at the Cambrai Casern Officer’s Club on Feb 26. The Army spokesman did not admit to whitewashing the investigation but simply said the officers had been spoken to, and that they meant no offense.

“It was all in the spirit of satire of Fasching,” said the spokesman. He did acknowledge that the inquiry was initiated because of a complaint by a Black officer SFC Alonzo A. Galloway. Galloway told the independent news weekly, Overseas Weekly, that he felt compelled to complain because. “I must ask, was this done to intimidate us or to scare us? It was highly inappropriate, and they had to have some sense of what it meant.”

As satire one might say, the costuming left a great deal to be desired. The 16 officers all wore hoods and white sheets that symbolize the racist American organization. They also had a potted 3 ft cross lit by candles, the Klan often burns crosses in the Southern United States as a warning to Negroes and Jews that they should move away.

The fact that the officers were so well costumed and had this cross seems to contradict a statement by the Army spokesman that the offending officers chose their costumes in haste with little thought. One of the officers, First Lieutenant Walter A. Zimmerman, said that the group chose the robes because they didn’t have much time to pick out costumes. According to the Army spokesman it was Zimmerman, from St. Louis, and Chief Warrant Officer Harry M. George, from Brownsville, Texas who proposed the Ku Klux Klansmen idea. While only six of the 16 officers are from Southern states it is telling that the two leading contributors are from states with deep racial divides.

All 16 officers are attached to the 547^th Engineer Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Bowman of California.

Among the ironies of the moment is that in the United States Negro citizens are right now demonstrating and marching for their rights in the American city of Mongomery, Alabama. In these demonstrations, White authorities have viciously assaulted the Negros with clubs and other weapons, often from horses.

Another irony is that U.S. Army General F.K. Mearns. Fifth Corps Commander did not order the officers to end their charade himself but instead requested that a Black soldier, Sargent Norman Brown relay his directive for the men to get rid of the cross and dispose of the robes.

While there was a formal complaint about the incident and there were six Black soldiers at the party no disciplinary action was taken. The 16 offending officers were told to exercise better judgment in the future by Lieutenant Colonel Bowman in a special meeting. 

Enraged White Mob Decides One Black Person Is The Same As Another When They Want To Murder

Plaque Memorializing Callie Crutchfield at 
the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama

Smith County, TN March 15, 1901 — A bloodthirsty mob forced their way into the home of Squire Albert Bains to take a young Black man into their custody. William Crutchfield had been taken to Bains's home by Sheriff William T. Oliver. Bains was the largest landowner in the county. The newspapers of the time have no explanation for why Wilson took Crutchfield there rather than his jail.

William Crutchfield had been arrested the day earlier for theft, having possession of a wallet owned by one Albert Sampson a week earlier. It was reported in the Nashville Banner that a Negro boy had found the wallet and was taking it to authorities when Crutchfield stopped the boy and took it from him. Sampson had pressed charges because he stated he had 120 dollars missing from the wallet. 

The mob apparently thought that an unproven theft was reason enough to murder someone and pulled Crutchfield from the house and drug him off. The young Black man fought fiercely with the mob and escaped into the woods. After a short search, the mob gave up and redirected their anger toward Crutchfield’s sister Callie.

The mob decided that the brother and sister must have conspired to steal the money from Sampson. No warrant for arrest was issued, and Sampson had not pressed charges against Callie Crutchfield but once a mob had their rage up, it didn’t matter.

The mob forced their way into yet another home, this time belonging to William Vanderpool where Callie Crutchfield had been living. They kidnapped the young woman and bound her arms and took her to the nearby bridge over Round Lick Creek. There they shot her in the head and dumped the body into the creek.

As was consistent with Jim Crow laws and culture the newspapers reported the murder as the culmination of suspicion and just vengeance by a mob implementing swift and terrible justice without a trial against someone who had not been accused of a crime until kidnapped by the mob. The coroner concluded that the death was at the hands of people unknown, which was the most common verdict in such deaths. 

                                   

 

Three Black Men Lynched To Protect A White Grocer's Monoply

 

People's Grocery marker at Walker Avenue and Mississippi Boulevard, Memphis Tennesee by Thomas R Machnitzki.

Memphis, TN 1892 – The Curve neighborhood in Memphis was a mixed community in the southeast corner of the city. It was called “The Curve” because of the tight turn street cars had to make going through that part of the city. For several years this was an area that was dominated by a single White grocer, William Barret. Because he had a monopoly Barret could charge higher prices to his Black customers who had little choice but to pay.

Today such areas are called “Food Deserts” by economists, anthropologists, politicians, and activists. This euphemism hides the fact this is the practice of economic apartheid and purposefully determined restrictions. This practice still happens today but in more subtle ways.

Barret’s monopoly ended for a brief period when Thomas Moss opened The People’s Grocery in 1889. While Moss was the majority owner the store worked as a cooperative with a business model based on the successful Colored Farners Alliance. Money local Black citizens had contributed to the business. The grocery thrived and brought more money and a sense of pride to the Blacks who lived in the Curve. This success made Barret resentful and increased racial tensions.

The People’s Grocery was a success for three years and inspired the community and at this time in the South, such things were not acceptable to the White community. Always alert for any social infraction, trouble began for Moss and two of his employees on March 2^nd when two boys, one White, and one Black, began fighting over a game of marbles. The Black boy was Armour Harris, and the White boy was Cornelius Hurst, during the argument Hurst’s father stepped in and began hitting Harris. Two men, Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell, came from the grocery to stop the assault. This escalated the situation and soon several other people joined in.

The scuffle lasted just a few minutes before it broke up, yet William Barret was hit with a club. He decided that this was a weapon he could use to end his rival. The next morning Barret took a police officer with him and entered the People’s Grocery. They were intending to arrest William Stewart one of the store’s employees who Barret blamed for the attack with a club.

Inside the store they didn’t find Stewart but had an encounter with another employee, Calvin McDowell, when confronted with the fact that Stewart wasn’t there Barret became enraged and hit McDowell with his revolver, in doing so he lost his grip on it, dropping the pistol which McDowell recovered, he ordered the men out of the store and when Barret advanced on him instead he shot at him and missed. This led to McDowells arrest

McDowell was released on Bond the next morning inflaming White residents. Black residents started meeting as well primarily to plan and prepare to protect themselves, however, some wanted to rid the Curve of White trash. Tensions were high between Blacks and Whites across Memphis. This was highlighted by another incident where a White grocer got into an argument with a Black shopper, John Mosby. Mosby was thrown out of a store and a few hours later returned with a club and got shot by the clerk.

Moss and other Black residents of the Curve concerned about protecting themselves consulted a lawyer but were told that because the Curve was technically outside the city limits, they wouldn’t have police protection and should prepare to protect themselves and their property.

On March 6^th the sheriff with a newly deputized posse surrounded the People’s Grocery and then went to arrest Stewart. This led to an armed confrontation where at least one deputy was shot and left blind in one eye. The posse retreated to Barret’s store and requested aid. Soon two hundred armed White men entered the Curve. They soon arrested the men in the grocery and started a house-to-house search and arrest. By morning they had arrested McDowell, Stewart, and Moss as well as Armour Harris.

After the arrests, the White posse stayed in town near the Shelby County jail as they waited to hear about deputies who had allegedly been shot and were near death. To protect the men the Black group known as The Tennessee Rifles stood outside the jail ready to protect the arrested men. However, when word came that no deputy would die the Tennessee Rifles decided that there was no threat of a lynching and left.

They were wrong and in the early morning hours of March 9^th 75 White men broke into the jail and took the three men from the grocery store from the jail. The mob took them to the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio rail yards. All three men tried to fight back but the mob shot them to death and left the bodies under some piled brush. Moss said to the White men, “Tell my people to go west. There is no justice for them here.” This statement was published the next day in Memphis Appeal-Avalanche.

The Appeal-Avalanche had been writing about the violence in the Curve with racial bias and wrote up the crime as something well done and necessary. Most southern newspapers would write lynching support stories during the Jim Crow era.

The lynchings in the Curve also initiated Ida B. Well’s crusade to end the practice. She had been friends with Moss and wrote of her friend, “A finer, cleaner man than he never walked the streets of Memphis. He was well-liked, a favorite with everybody; yet he was murdered with no more consideration than if he had been a dog… The colored people feel that every white man in Memphis who consented in his death is as guilty as those who fired the guns which took his life.”

No one was ever arrested or punished for the murders, or for the death threats Miss Wells received that forced her to move to Chicago. 6,000 Blacks fled Memphis in the next two years following Moss’s advice.

The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche from March 3rd, 1892

Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-murder-of-a-black-grocery-store-owner-and-his-colleagues-galvanized-ida-b-wells-anti-lynching-crusade-180984350/

https://daily.jstor.org/peoples-grocery-lynching/

https://blogs.memphis.edu/benhooksinstitute/2015/09/30/memphis-and-the-lynching-at-the-curve/