Black Protest to Desegregate Mississippi Beaches Ends in Violence by Whites

African Americans flee from violent White mobs on the beach in Biloxi on April 24, 1960, 

Jim Lund Daily Herald File

April 24, 1960, Biloxi, Mississippi. – Dr. Gilbert Mason was a lifetime resident of Mississippi. In the 1950s he developed a respected and growing practice in Biloxi. He was the 2^nd Black doctor in Harrison Couty following Dr. Felix Dunn who was still active, the two became friends and colleagues. In May of 1959, the two doctors took their families to the beach but were threatened with arrest by a White police officer. This event turned Mason’s attention to the Civil Rights Movement.

Biloxi has 26 miles of beachfront and it was “White Only." In his autobiography Mason described himself, as “an idealistic young man who loved to swim, and the idea that these oak-lined beaches couldn’t be accessed by me, well I had no intention of living out my life or having my son live with these racist segregation laws.”

So he and Dunn set out to try and change the situation. First, they wrote to the Harrison County Board of Supervisors and asked what laws prohibited Blacks from using the beaches. The board president wrote back that private property owners restricted access to the beach and to 1,500 feet out in the Gulf of Mexico. Then they petitioned to be allowed to use the beach and were offered a small section that would be segregated. Mason and Dunn rejected this.

Mason then turned his attention to what he called “Wade-Ins.” He did the first two in June and October 1959 and planned the other for April 1960. This came after months of planning with the Gulfport NAACP. On April 17, Mason and seven other Black men attempted to go to the beach and swim; they were arrested. Word got around the city; Biloxi had 10,000 black residents, and people lined up to help support Mason.

One week later on April 24^th Mason and 125 other Black residents attempted to use the beach. This time they were met not with law enforcement but hundreds of angry White residents. These angry people fit the stereotypical racist Mississippi bigot. They began with name-calling and quickly escalated to objects throwing and firing guns into the air. Soon they attacked with bats and bricks and other weapons.

That morning Mason had driven the oceanfront property and noticed Harrison County Sheriff’s Deputies on the beach and around what the NAACP had set as their three target zones. “I mistakenly thought they were being positioned to protect us,” Mason said in his autobiography. As he headed toward the lighthouse where he had previously been arrested he saw 500 White people surrounding about 45 Blacks. I started praying because I thought we were leading lambs to slaughter,” Mason said.

There were dozens of Sheriff Deputies around but that’s all they were doing, standing around. As the Blacks struggled to break through Mason and other organizers realized they were all in serious danger because the law enforcement was there to protect the Whites if they were there to protect anyone.

Mason saw two boys he knew being beaten by five men, so he just stopped in the middle of the highway and rushed to stop them. When one of the men tried to use a pool cue against him he took it from the man and beat him down. When another man jumped him he bit him. Then the Deputy Sheriff, Merritt Brunies finally intervened by arresting the two boys and then telling Mason he was under arrest. Mason told him he didn’t have time to be, jumped over the sea wall with the pool cue, and headed to help people being beaten.

As Blacks ran from the beach they were pursued by gangs of Whites. Some got away and others were beaten badly while no law enforcement intervened. Some went to the hospital and others went to Dr. Mason’s office. Mason went by the hospital and was checking on various people but because he had no attending rights he had to leave. One doctor filed a complaint after Mason checked on his close friend Wilmer McDaniel. At his office, Mason cared for people by bandaging and stitching up people and giving them tetanus shots.

As the day went on the violence didn’t stop it spread out into the city becoming the worst race riot in Mississippi history. White gangs randomly hunted for Blacks and used pipes, clubs, and guns. Large groups of Blacks surrounded Mason’s office and pledged to protect him. Law enforcement drove around using loudspeakers to warn Blacks that Mason would be held responsible for any trouble.

Dunn joined Mason at his office to help people but to also plan how to get the national NAACP involved as leaders Roy Wilkins and Clarence Mitchell were in Meridan they assigned Medgar Evers to investigate and promised to send aid. Then Mason turned himself in to the Sheriff, where Deputy Brunies made the arrest, and was shocked Mason turned himself in. It became Mason’s 2^nd charge for disturbing the peace in a week.

After the riot ended dozens were injured, eight Black men and two White men were shot and seven airmen from nearby Kessler Air Force base were injured in fighting. Dozens of Black men besides Mason were arrested for disturbing the peace but no Whites were for anything. The mayor ordered a curfew and finally ordered law enforcement to quell the violence.  

In the aftermath, the usual was said by White men. President of the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce Anthony Ragusin claimed that the NAACP caused the riots and violence and were financed by, “Foreign Powers wanting to harm the United States.”

Mason and Dunn founded the Biloxi NAACP chapter in the weeks after and the U.S. Department of Justice sued the city to force the desegregation. The NAACP also sued hoping to force the city to do it more quickly. However, the city was able to delay this until 1963.

Mason served as the state president of the Mississippi & Biloxi NAACP for 33 years, as a scoutmaster, and continued his practice. He was a committed activist until his wife died in 1999. He led voter registration drives and supported legal actions to force the state to eliminate the poll tax.

Mason died in 2006 and as part of his legacy, a section of U.S. Highway 90 by Biloxi has been renamed the Doctor Gilbert Mason Memorial Highway. There is a historical maker at the Biloxi lighthouse marking the wade-ins and Mississippi’s own Bloody Sunday.

 

Sources:

Beaches, Blood, and Ballots. N.p.: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/biloxi-wade-ins-1959-1963/

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/04/26/105428379.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://www.usm.edu/association-office-professionals/uploads/forgettingthewadeinsarticle.pdf

 

Striking Miners Riddled With Bullets For Copper Mine’s Profit Margins

 

Front page of the worker supporting paper Butte Daily Bullitenfor April 28, 1920

April 21, 1920, Butte Montana. – The “Richest Hill in the World” was facing an unknown, to them, threat. A strike against the largest employer in Butte, the Anaconda Copper Mine.

On April 19, 1920, a membership vote was taken and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union called for a strike against the copper mines in Butte. Strikes and union activity were hardly unknown in Butte. Before America entered World War One, Butte was one of the strongest union cities in the United States. Starting with the unionization of silver miners. In 1887 the power was with the unions that supported miner safety, better wages, and fair hours.

As the city grew in population due to a booming mine economy, union power also grew and by 1900 there were few professions without a union.
This included blacksmiths, brewers, construction trades, stage workers and musicians.

However, the business owners and leaders who hated the power of the unions and devised ways to break them or at least moderate their power and unity. They began by putting the unions against each other in power struggles for greater membership and influence. By 1914 as the rest of the world looked unsettled with the European powers appearing to head into an unavoidable conflict, the unions in Butte had had their confrontation. Socialists, Conservatives, and IWW members clashed. Using private detectives like the Pinkertons the mine owners had uncovered enough information to cause these conflicts but also had infiltrated the unions and put them against each other arguing that union leaders did not represent workers.

Mine owners also played up old prejudices and ethnic and national distrust. English against the Irish, Poles against Prussians, Belarusians and Austrians, Danes and Finns, Turks and Armenians. Using propaganda and infiltration the mine owners created distrust and suspicions based on ancient tribal grievances.

The mine owners cared little for what the unions wanted or fought for. To them there was an unending stream of manual labor coming from the poorest areas of Europe, Asia and Mexico. Mining was not safe and even with concessions to the unions there was an average of at least one death a week in the Butte mines and regularly explosions killing six to ten men at once.

Then there were the toxins copper mining. Copper dust was itself a toxic inhalant that resulted in asthma and emphysema. Mines also used mercury and arsenic in the separating processes to refine the metal, which was dangerous. However, by the time war broke out the ongoing propaganda operations had created some strong divisions and what had been a powerful presence in 1900 had lost much of their power.

After the war ended, the Metal Mine Workers Union and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) tried to step into the power vacuum. When they declared a strike on April 19 they were trying to gain two things for workers; a standardized 8-hour day and the end of the “Rustling Card” used by mine owners to ostracize workers and eventually expel them from Butte and other mining towns for being unreliable troublemakers. This was how they treated anyone talking about unionization or organization.

After the strike began the union miners started picketing and blocking the roads to the mines from workers who wanted to cross the picket lines. By the end of the next day the strikers had shut down all the roads to the mines slowing production. The Daily Bulletin in Butte reported that Anaconda Mine manager Cornelius “Con” Kelley had suggested killing striking workers.

On the morning of the 21^st, Sheriff John K. O’Rouke met with I.W.W. strike leaders at the “Neversweat” mine on Anaconda Road to negotiate opening the roads. He was met with refusal to stop picketing until the mine owners gave in. Then O’Rouke met Kelley and at his suggestion deputized Anaconda mine security.

This was instantly a bad idea. Security was under the complete control of Kelley and had been preaching about the radicals infiltrating the unions. When the miners would not move off the Anaconda Road at the direction of Anaconda Security The guardsmen opened fire. They hit 17 of the striking miners who had run when the guns started firing. Most had run downhill and were wounded.

Three men were hurt severely. Thomas Manning a popular young man who had recently immigrated from Ireland was shot through the bladder and the bullet exited out his abdomen. Manning was mortally wounded and died a week later. Another man Thomas Sullivan was paralyzedwith a bullet shattering his spine. He never walked again and went back to Ireland where he died from a bullet in his kidney 8 months later. Miner John McCarthy was shot 14 times, he did eventually recover and became a lawyer.

The other wounded men all had wounds from the bullets, some that left permanent injury, but they lived for years after, many remained in Butte. A coroner’s inquest was held at the request of the sheriff. Dozens of witnesses testified. Many of the union workers insisted that Anaconda lawyer and advisor Roy S. Alley had fired the first shot hitting Manning; both the sheriff and the coroner felt there wasn’t enough evidence to support that conclusion and ruled the shooting was at the hands of unidentified individuals.

Kelley went on the offensive with newspapermen interviews and community groups stating that the I.W.W. was at fault and initiated the violence. He gave speeches and talks for months after identifying the I.W.W. as radicals who weren’t working for worker rights but to subvert the mining culture. Kelley said the IWW wanted to take over the labor movement and change the United States with the dreaded “Socialism”. All industries across America began labeling the I.W.W. as Socialist or Communist it would not recover from the accusations.

Kelley became one of the most important figures in mining through the first half of the 20^th Century. The Anaconda Road Massacre and other labor actions in the 1930s never affected his reputation. He helped bargain the Anaconda purchase of the Chuquicamata copper operation in Chile and the Cananea copper mine in northern Mexico. By the time World War II broke out Anaconda was the largest copper mining company in the world and had revolutionized the fabrication of wire and piping.

At Mannings funeral Ralph Chaplin, poet of the I.W.W., spoke and framed the current and future of the Anaconda Mining Company: “The overlords of Butte will not permit their right to exploit to be challenged. Drunk with unbridled power and the countless millions profiteered during the war, with lying phrases of “law and order” on their lips, the blood of workingmen dripping from their hands, and the gold of the government bursting their coffers, they face the nation unreprimanded and unashamed – reaction militant, capitalism at its worst. The copper trust can murder its slaves in broad daylight on any occasion and under any pretext. There is no law to call a halt. In the confines of this greed-ruled city, the gunman has replaced the Constitution. Butte is a law unto itself.”

Sources:

https://libcom.org/article/when-toil-meant-trouble-buttes-labour-heritage

https://weneverforget.org/tag/anaconda-road-massacre-of-1920/

https://www.mininghalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/cornelius-francis-kelley

https://www.verdigrisproject.org/butte-americas-story-blog/butte-americas-story-episode-6

Police Battle Black Protesters of "The Birth of a Nation" in Boston

Headline from  the Boston Globe April 18, 1915 and William Trotter Monroe

April 17-21, 1915, Boston, Mass.- Boston is not historically known as a racially harmonious city and in 1915 this was certainly true. However it was also true that the controversial D.W. Griffith film “Birth of a Nation” was surprisingly unwelcome in the city. Both White and Black residents had spoken out and the White supporters and membership of the NAACP chapter had meetings with the mayor on using the existing state censorship laws to outright ban the film. The “Birthplace of Liberty” was rejecting the false history presented by the film.

Griffith’s film was at least partly based on the 1905 book “The Clansman” by Thomas Dixon Fr. Both the film and the book were unapologetically pro-South and against the Reconstruction era. In fact, this was one of major landmarks in the development of the “Lost Cause” myth that romanticized the Antebellum South and the Confederacy. The popularity of the film led the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in the post WWI years through the early 1920s.

The film was protested by Black citizens in over 60 cities, but this hadn’t made dent in it’s popularity among White audiences. It didn’t help that President Woodrow Wilson had held a private screening and seemed to be impressed with the film, although the often quoted, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true, " is believed by Presidential historians to be false.

In Boston civil rights activist and publisher of the Negro newspaper The Guardian William Monroe Trotter had been working with the NAACP to try and convince Boston Mayor James Curley to get the film banned under the broad censorship laws of Massachusetts, they had also approached Governor David I. Walsh, who had tried to get an emergency injunction through the state legislature and failed. Trotter had not been in the front of these actions because he wasn’t a supporter of either politician and had stated that working within the system that didn’t offer civil rights to the Black man wasn’t a system that could be trusted.

Trotter was the type of man who considered abrasive by many and had already had a falling out with President Wilson because he was radical, angry and Black. The Guardian was a paper that supported Negro Rights and justice for Blacks. Trotter was against the accommodationist policy of men like Booker T. Washington and spoke out against it. His falling out with Wilson came when the two met to discuss why Wilson was segregating federal employment in November of 1914. This meeting did not go well as Wilson was committed to the segregation of government employees and saw no problem and Trotter said it was insulting as it showed Wilson did not think the Black man as equal. Wilson did not respond but told Trotter, "If this organization wishes to approach me again, it must choose another spokesman ... your tone, sir, offends me."

Despite the growing protest of Blacks and their White allies in Boston the Tremont Theater was committed to showing "The Birth of a Nation". They had hung the Confederate flag outside the theater. All week Trotter witnessed this way of attracting viewers while hearing complaints of illegal discrimination. This was supported by Trotter’s friend William D. Brigham who was White but had seen tickets sellers tell Blacks that tickets were all sold out or the only ones left were the more expensive ones in center stage.

So, Trotter decided that evening to attend the film at the Tremont. About 7:00 pm Trotter left his office with his friend Aaron William Puller, the minister of the People’s Baptist Church. Word had spread and when the two civil rights leaders intended to see the film. About 100 other Blacks had joined them walking to the Tremont.

At 7:30 Trotter and Puller entered the theater with about a dozen other Blacks. Trotter approached the ticket counter and asked for a ticket. He was told that none were available. Trotter responded by asking why there was nothing saying so. “’But you have no sign out to that effect, neither here nor at the outer door, and I demand my rights,” Trotter had said with low anger.

Then a White couple stepped up to the counter and bought tickets. Trotter had repeated his statement that he was demanding his rights. At this time a plain-clothed officer stepped up to Trotter and hit him full in the face. A fight immediately broke out between Trotter’s supporters and the large group of Boston police who were on the scene. Trotter was kicked and punched and then put into hand cuffs by two police and they dragged him 15 blocks to the police station. Minister Puller had attempted to call for peace but was also punched and then a large officer put him in a choke hold and still in the hold was dragged the 15 blocks.

Eleven other Blacks men were arrested in the melee. It wasn’t a riot but a fight between Blacks and police where the Blacks were badly outnumbered and beaten. All of them were released the next day without immediate charges but warned not to challenge the theater again. A rally for Trotter and Puller was held at Faneuil Hall and a crowd of 1,500, both Black and White had come. Trotter called the film a great incentive to racial violence and that if there were an actual lynching that Mayor Curly would be responsible.

Two days later, using the momentum of a city that considered itself progressive compared to the Jim Crow South Trotter led a march on the state house where he and a recovering Puller met with Governor Walsh, the chief of the state police, and others to discuss the film and all the complaints that had come at Griffith in Boston and other cities. Including why Chicago, Pittsburgh and Denver had refused to allow the movie to be shown.

This meeting led to the creation of a censorship board to review the film. Two weeks later a mass meeting was held at Minister Puller’s church, the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. At this meeting Trotter introduced a resolution condemning Boston police action at the Tremont Theater. However, the National Independent Political League Lawyer Joshua Crawford said, "We are not going to stop. The film has got to go or they will have to put us in jail."

While it appeared, there was a strong movement and a possibility of getting the film censored in Boston that didn’t happen. Trotter appeared in municipal court where the judge did find the Tremont Theater had used unfair discrimination in selling tickets, a legal victory. The same judge also fined Trotter $20 (Approximately $630 in 2025) for disturbing the peace, stating that someone with Mr. Trotters influence was such that his conduct was inappropriate and that if people were wronged, he should have tried for redress in the courts or legislature. The censorship board also decided that the Tremont Theater could continue to show the film. So as Trotter always believed the system was unfair to Blacks.

Even though the protests continued it made no impact on the box office, for the time The Birth of A Nation was the biggest ticket sales event of the silent era. There was no official box office that early in film history, totals have been adjusted for inflation for anywhere from $5 million to $1.8 billion both ridiculous conclusions. Factually what id known is that it had a cultural impact well beyond what any film critic or even film historian believes it deserved.

Trotter continued to be seen as a radical even within Black activist circles. His anti-establishment positions and anti-WWI activities caused him to lose support and in the Red Summer of 1919 when White on Black violence had reached an extreme with race riots across the country but Trotter wrote of rebellion and how Whites would soon regret how “Uncle Sam” had trained Black soldiers. While Trotter came from rare Black wealth he had lost most of it in his activities and in publishing The Guardian. He fell into a form of elegant penury still maintaining his social refinement while borrowing on the means of others. His wife and partner in protesting died in the great influenza of 1918.

Through these years of decline he still published The Guardian and used it as a voice of protest. He reported on lynchings, anti-Black laws, censorship of Blacks and anything that he felt targeted Blacks and showed unequal treatment. He eventually  was found dead April 7^th, 1934. He was 62 years old and was found after some type of fall from the roof of his home. While it is speculated that he did commit suicide because it was know he had been extremely depressed however there was no definite evidence supporting anything specific.

Trotter is considered among the 100 greatest African Americans in U.S. history. There are several schools named after him and his home is a landmark and museum.

 

Sources:

https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/black-history-boston-william-monroe-trotter-and-the-fight-against-the-birth-of-a-nation/

https://tinyurl.com/ypp7re32

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2014-11-21/the-birth-of-a-nation-revisits-century-old-racial-tensions

https://iu.pressbooks.pub/thebirthofanation/chapter/birth-of-a-nations-long-century/

https://www.salon.com/2014/11/30/race_riot_in_the_south_end_the_movie_that_reignited_the_civil_war/

 

United Auto Workers Union's Unity Stronger Than Racial Divide for a Brief Moment

Members of the United Auto Workers striking in September of 1970

 April 16, 1970, Detroit, Michigan — Detroit could be called anything but harmonious between White and Black residents. There was a history of civil unrest going back to at least 1943 when Whites attacked Black workers over integrated housing and a push for equality and integration in the machine works and assembly lines of World War II production. Racial unrest was a common news item and event in the city.

So, the walkout by a mixed assembly of United Auto Workers from the Chrysler Gear & Axle plant on Eldon Avenue in April 1970 in support of a Black worker was anything but expected. However, this incident showed that the one thing workers could agree on was the safety of workers and bullying by management.

On April 16, machinist John Scott was going off shift when he was confronted by his foreman, Irwin Ashlock. Ashlock felt that Scott’s output production was poor and threatened him with disciplinary action. Scott argued with Ashlock that his expectations weren’t realistic and well above what the union contract stated. Infuriated Ashlock had picked up a pinion gear and threatened to bash Scott’s head in. Not only was this an egregious threat by someone in management it was a harsh physical threat as Ashlock was 6’1” and weighed about 200 pounds while Scott was 5’6” and weighed around 105 pounds. After the two had been separated, Scott was ordered off the grounds, and when he got home, he received a phone call stating he had been dismissed.

In 1970, there were no “Right to Work” laws, and the UAW contract stated that a union worker had to be given a legitimate reason for being fired. Scott was told that he was fired for threatening his supervisor with a knife. Scott then called his union representative and friends who were members of the all-black Eldon Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement, who started notifying workers to walk out.

Scott and Ashlock worked the third shift, or the overnight, and by the time the first shift went to break on Friday, they had agreed to walk off because Scott had been fired and Ashlock had not. Witnesses said that Ashlock had lied and that there had been a clear pattern of racial bias.

This “Wildcat” strike to support Scott was unusual, but it was also a time of labor unrest, and there had been ongoing negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three auto makers. One of the sticking issues, particularly for Chrysler, was their arbitrary production goals that often seemed to have racial or gender biased reasons. Safety was also a concern, as just a few weeks before the Scott-Ashlock incident, a 51-year-old female had lost her arm in a machine accident. While the UAW local was willing to negotiate, they didn’t call for a strike; it was the Eldon Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement that had, and the nearly 4000 workers at the plant listened.

All workers returned for the first shift on Monday morning while the UAW negotiated for Scott’s return and Ashlock’s firing. They had told the rank and file to give it two weeks. Within the week, Scott returned, and Ashlock was gone. Such was the power of unity. It wouldn’t last. In August of 1970 was the Memorial Park riots were led by alienated White youth. In September, the UAW called for a full strike against Chrysler. 400,000 workers struck against Chrysler for 67 days, the longest auto workers' strike in history. There were riots in 1975 and 1984 caused by racial tensions, poverty, and police brutality against the Black residents.

Sources:

https://libcom.org/article/black-cats-white-cats-wildcats-auto-workers-detroit-1969

https://rs4.reuther.wayne.edu/LR000874/BOX_02_PDF/LR000874_01_02_A_002_029_001.pdf

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1974/11/20/james-johnson-pbnbo-one-knew-who/

White Mob Drives Black Residents from Joplin Missouri In Night of Bloodlust

 

Ralph Downing illustration that appeared in the Joplin Globe, April 16, 1903

April 15, 1903 – Joplin, Missouri – It began with the lynching of one Black man and ended with every Negro in Joplin fleeing the city and local area. In the early morning, a city policeman, Theodore Leslie, tried to break up an indigent camp near the railroad. Leslie met with resistance from the men of the camp, and during the scuffle, Leslie was shot and killed. Hearing the gunshot, other law enforcement officers rushed to the scene. The group of men had scattered, but the law officers discovered a Black man in a nearby alley and arrested him for the murder of Leslie.

That man was Thomas Gilyard, who insisted he was innocent and had no idea what had happened. Word had spread rapidly around the community and throughout Southwest Missouri. Within the hour, hundreds, perhaps 2000 men had gathered in the streets of Joplin. They were enraged not entirely for racial reasons as Leslie was a popular policeman. Gilyard had been arrested by Sheriff James T. Owen and taken to the jail. Men continued to come into town, and by 1 pm in the afternoon, nearly 5,000 White men and boys roamed the street.

Owen could feel the pressure building and tried to defuse it by talking with the men who seemed to be becoming leaders of the White horde. Owen also met with city leaders trying to calm the crowd.. None of it worked, and at five o’clock, a White mass of men attacked the city jail, breaking down a wall and pulling Gilyard out and beating him with their bare hands, clubs, and rocks. They had attacked and driven off Sheriff Owen, his deputies, and the jailer. They dragged Gilyard about a block away and pulled him up on a rope over a telephone pole. The crowd cheered and excitedly moved about the city. The saloons and taverns closed by Sheriff Owen hours earlier, opened them Owens hoped this would relax and finally diffuse the crowd.

It didn’t; the alcohol fueled the bloodlust fueled even young men and many women. Whispering that it was time to make sure the Blacks could never harm a White person again. The mob reassembled on the street. They demanded the release of a White man called “Hickory Bill” from the jail; he had been arrested for pistol whipping a Negro. The city officials agreed and released Bill, but this did not appease the mob.

The throng emptied the bars and began marching towards the Negro section of town. Law enforcement had gathered and tried to stop them, but with thousands of people bearing down on them and not wanting to increase the violence, or perhaps out of either cowardice or sympathy with the mob’s desires, they broke off and ran away from defending the Black population.

The White mob descended on the Black settlement with guns and torches, driving out the African Americans and burning down their homes. They cheered every fire started and continued to scream out for revenge for Theodore Leslie. The Fire department responded and did their best to put out the fires, but with the mob continually setting buildings ablaze, they couldn’t.

The mob then turned from the north side of town and marched down Main Street and across the railroad into the other Black section. There, they repeated setting a conflagration, and by physical force and fear, they ran every Black person out. Within hours, they had burned every home to the ground. Finally, the mob's bloodlust seemed to be exhausted.

Surprisingly, an investigation into the affair did go forward, and an arrest was made. A man named Sam Mitchell was arrested and charged with the murder of Gilyard and for inciting the mob. Mitchell was arrested by Owens the next day. He was held for a month while the City Attorney P. D, Decker proceeded with the case and a jury was impaneled. Shortly before the trial began, Judge Hugh Dabbs censored Sheriff Owens for leniency and allowing Mitchell to work by himself, separate from other prisoners and without a guard. Regardless, the trial went forward.

Shockingly, Mitchell was actually convicted of the charges in June of 1903. This was actually a surprise in an area that was so racist they drove all Blacks out. However, after the trial, Mitchell’s lawyers convinced Dabbs to throw out the conviction because a juror had spoken to someone outside the sequester and revealed he knew a witness had perjured himself.

A second trial was held in November, and Mitchell was exonerated with all charges dropped when the jury failed to convict. Mitchell, interestingly, was hailed a hero two years later when word came from Fort Smith, Arkansas, that he died saving two children from a runaway wagon pulled by a team of horses. Sheriff Owen was not reelected in 1904, and Judge Dabbs was removed from office by the Missouri attorney general for serving in a district that didn’t exist.

The lynching led features in the national news, but not for the death of Thomas Gilyard but the aftermath. The exiling of Blacks was widely condemned but also soon forgotten. The racial animus in Missouri remained and 3 years later a greater tragedy happened in Springfield, Missouri when an enraged mob lynched three innocent men for raping a White woman, who told the mob they had gotten the wrong men.

 

 

Sources:

https://medium.com/the-awl/100-years-later-a-black-man-finally-loves-joplin-cd879f208b0a

https://oaahm.omeka.net/exhibits/show/exodus/ozarksraceriots/joplin--april-15th--1903

HARPER, KIMBERLY. “INTRODUCTION.” White Man’s Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909, University of Arkansas Press, 2010, pp. xv–xxv. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ffjhm9.5. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.

Ku Klux Klan Holds Church Revivals Across Alabama to Increase Faltering Membership

 

Ad in the Evergreen Courant, April 4, 1927

April 7, 1927, Evergreen, Alabama — On this night the Ku Klux Klan held another of their “Revivals” that have been going on this year in other parts of Alabama. These gatherings were open to the public in large tents on the grounds of various churches. Tonight’s was on the grounds of the Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

The gatherings were not announced as recruitment for the Klan but were. Flyers announced that the gathering was for families and especially called for women to come and hear the speakers and lessons.

These lessons included “What is the Ku Klux Klan” and “The 5 Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and were taught by Dr. I. W. Stout, the Imperial Lecturer of the Ku Klux Klan, who did most of the speaking for each night of the revival.

The revival in Evergreen became one of the largest of 1927 and ran for nine days. Each night Stout spoke about issues he felt were facing the United States, The South, Negroes, Protestants and the Klan. He tried to impress up on the crowds, reported to be quite large by the Evergreen Courant, that Negroes were loyal to Klan was perhaps a bit shocking to the Negro if it was heard by one. This was not a new theme though as the 1920s Klan tried to project that they were good for the Negro by helping men find good wives and become married men and not animals.

Stout spoke against the Roman church as an evangelist first his passion was for the Protestant version of faith and that “Papists” held greater belief in their “Roman King” and the saints than they did Christ. Stout also spoke of no divisions within Protestantism, even if there were different denominations.

Stout’s strongest sermon was on the “5 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Which was a misleading title for his sermon and pamphlet but was consistent with the religious teaching of the 1920s Klan. This sermon taught that the White Horse in the Book of Revelations was the Klan. They were honest and true and fighting for righteousness. The projection was that the Klan was the only defender of the Christian faith, the flag, and the bible. The White Horse’s symbol was fire, as was the Klan’s.

The revival was hoped to reverse the losses the Klan had from their national apex of influence in the early 1920s before the stories of corruption and murder began costing them members. The message had become even more strongly Christian and anti-immigrant as many Eastern Europeans had come in a second strong wave following the German loss in World War One and the economic depression that had already begun in Europe.

Still, the corruption was a difficult thing to deny even in Alabama, where Governor Bibb Graves was a former member. For most of early 1927, the Birmingham Police Department was involved in a bitter law suit from a former sergeant who had been forced off the force because of his Klan membership. There was also a nasty criminal libel case against the Age-Herald Newspaper in Birmingham. Governor Graves wasn’t a known member of the Klan until he resigned from the group, and then he and Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black became known as the “Goldust Twins” in a prerogative manner by the Klan for using the political power of the Klan in the early 20s but abandoning them when success came.

As a secret organization the Klan never revealed their numbers but did say the revival increased their membership. There was no way to prove this even if the conservative southern newspapers had found a reason to do so I. W Stout left Alabama that May for the Ozarks, and later in 1927, he went to Wichita and was elected to the local school board. He died in 1952 at age 79.

 

Sources:

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/apr/07

https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=FC19240613.1.6&srpos=19&e=-------en-20-FC-1--txt-txIN-gunsolus------

https://www.newspapers.com/image/552961811/?match=1&terms=%22Ku%20Klux%20Klan%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/538079191/?match=1&terms=%22I.%20W.%20Stout%22

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Murdered in Memphis.

 

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968, a day before he was assassinated at approximately the same place. From left are Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, King and Ralph Abernathy. Charles Kelly/AP

Civil rights leader Andrew Young (L) and others on balcony of Lorraine Motel pointing in direction of assailant after assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is lying mortally wounded at their feet. Joseph Louw—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Dr. King arrived in Memphis on April 3rd to speak in support of the city's striking sanitation workers. He spoke at the Mason Temple that night and delivered his famous "I've Been To The Mountain Top" speech. Perhaps he had a premonition because he closed his speech by talking about the threats he had received and that he wanted to live a long life, but if the Lord had decided otherwise, he was fine with that.

King had begun redirecting his passionate Civil Rights campaign to a campaign that was inclusive of all poor people. He didn’t feel the promises of the United States had yet to be fulfilled in Civil Rights, though, and in his speech, he demanded the United States live up to the ideals and promises made in the preamble to the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. His speech was filled with parables and was a call for economic justice.

Dr. King and his party spent the night at the Lorraine Hotel. He intended to have dinner with a friend and fellow minister. He had come out on the balcony of his room and was speaking to his chauffeur when the fatal shot was fired from a nearby rooftop.

King was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died during emergency surgery. King’s death led to anger and disillusionment, with a feeling that now only violence could solve the problem of inequality and White supremacy. While King’s peers such as Reverend Ralph Abernathy called for calm and non-violence others like Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael called for armed resistance. Riots exploded in cities across the country. Fortunately, these riots ended rather quickly and had little loss of life or property compared to the civil unrest of 1965.

The career criminal James Earl Ray was arrested in London on June 6^th, 1968. He had fled Memphis to Atlanta and Toronto and then London. He initially confessed to the assassination but later recanted. Conspiracy theories grew instantly and were eventually accepted by the King's family. While there is a great deal of evidence and reason to support the idea of a conspiracy, no real investigation has ever been initiated by authorities. Ray received a life sentence of 99 years when he was convicted of the killing.

A private funeral for King's family and closest associates was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Afterwards, as many as 100,000 people accompanied the mule-drawn coffin and funeral procession through the city to Morehouse College. Among the mourners were Ethiopian leader Halie Selassie, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Robert Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. UN Ambassador Ralph Bunche. Civil Rights leaders such as John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, and Rosa Parks. Celebrities such as Paul Newman, close King family friends Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier. Actor activists Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Eartha Kitt and Dick Gregory. Over a hundred elected leaders and famous individuals attended the public funeral, with over 50,000 mourners.

Family and Friends Gather to Kidnap and Lynch A Tenant Farmer

 

Front Page, The Marshall News Messenger, April 6, 1932

Houston County, Texas, April 1, 1932 — Overnight, the first lynching in Texas in the last two years took place, Sheriff J. L. Hazlett discovered the hanging body of tenant farmer Dave Tillus hanging from a blackjack tree about 15 miles from Crockett late tonight.

The sheriff had been looking for Tillus’ body after being notified by landowner Arch Maples who owned the land Tillus worked as a tenant farmer. Maples told the sheriff he was bringing the 52-year-old negro into Crockett to turn himself over to the sheriff after accusations by the young widow Hattie Smith (Ackley) that Tillus had come into the shack she and her son were living in and said he was going to spend the night. Mrs. Smith said she chased him from the house and then went over to find her family in the Trinity River Bottoms where they farmed.

Tillus hadn’t said anything to Maples about guilt or innocence he just agreed to go to the sheriff’s office. Maples slowed down in a rocky area near the Bottoms rather than wreck when they were stopped by four men with guns. They ordered Tillus from the car and ordered Maples to leave.

Maples continued into Crockett to get the sheriff, who he was running against in the 1932 Houston County Sheriff’s Election. Maples reported that it was about 9:30 P.M. when the men stopped them. Maples and Sheriff Hazlett arrived back at the grove of trees near the Bottoms around 11:00 pm to find the body. Interestingly enough no newspapers stories report there was any rush to get back by the two men or any expectation they would find Tillus alive.

The next morning the county coroner held an inquest and determined that Tillus had strangled to death after being hit very hard on the front of the head where there was a large gash. The coroner issued a certificate of murder which was slightly different from the traditional “Death at the hands of people unknown”. Sheriff Hazlett was determined to find the men who committed this murder apparently as he requested the aid of the Texas Rangers, but remarkably then sent a telegram saying he had solved the case.

Hazlett had responded to rumors around the county about the crime and had conducted a thorough search of the scene following tracks back to the homes of the Ackley family. W.H. Ackley, his son Dan Ackley and cousin Paul Ackley. Paul Ackley is the brother to Hattie Ackley, the alleged target of David Tillus. Hazlett arrested thos three men plus two of their neighbors Bob Downs and Albert Smith. This was an intergenerational conspiracy as Downs and W.H. Ackley are 65 and 70 while the others are reported to be in their 20s.

Hazlett was backed up by District Attorney T.B. Greenwood and County Attorney Henry Adams. Justice of the Peace Houston Betts told the quintet of the charges and set bonds of $2,500 for each man. These were paid and the men released on their own recognizance with orders to appear at a grand jury in August.

For some reason this is where the story disappears. The men all said they were innocent of course but come August there are no reports of the outcome of the Grand Jury in this case. Digging through the archives of both newspapers and Texas Courts reveal no outcome.

In the end it seems this case was like so many others involving Black men and White women in the South. A word from one was all to often a death sentence.

 Sources:

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/downloads/neu:4f17rd770?datastream_id=content

https://lynchingintexas.historicalmx.org/items/show/508#&gid=1&pid=1

https://books.google.com/books?id=BFgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41&dq=Dave+Tillus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIwbei7reMAxUHITQIHSUQA9wQ6AF6BAgFEAM#v=onepage&q=Dave%20Tillus&f=false