Mob Rule in New Orleans: Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching StatisticsWells-Barnett, Ida B.
History
Mob Rule in New Orleans: Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching Statistics
Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
Lynching
Thilo for years has been employed by the butchers and fish merchants to
carry baskets from the stalls to the wagons, and unload the wagons as
they arrive in the morning. He was on his way to the market, when the
mob came upon him. One of the gang struck the old Negro, and as he fell,
another in the crowd, supposed to be a young fellow, fired a shot. The
bullet entered the body just below the right nipple.
As the Negro fell the crowd looked into his face and they discovered
then that the victim was very old. The young man who did the shooting
said: "Oh, he is an old Negro. I'm sorry that I shot him."
This is all the old Negro received in the way of consolation.
He was left where he fell, but later staggered to his feet and made his
way to the third precinct station. There the police summoned the
ambulance and the students pronounced the wound very dangerous. He was
carried to the hospital as rapidly as possible.
There was no arrest.
Just before daybreak the mob found another victim. He, too, was on his way
to market, driving a meat wagon. But little is told of his treatment,
nothing more than the following brief statement:
At nearly 3 o'clock this morning a report was sent to the Third Precinct
station that a Negro was lying on the sidewalk at the corner of Decatur
and St. Philip. The man had been pulled off of a meat wagon and riddled
with bullets.
When the police arrived he was insensible and apparently dying. The
ambulance students attended the Negro and pronounced the wounds fatal.
There was nothing found which would lead to the discovery of his
identity.
+FUN IN GRETNA+
If there are any persons so deluded as to think that human life in the
South is valued any more than the life of a brute, he will be speedily
undeceived by reading the accounts of unspeakable barbarism committed by
the mob in and around New Orleans. In no other civilized country in the
world, nay, more, in no land of barbarians would it be possible to
duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In
the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and
kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past
belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their
chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting
men who had no possible connection with any crime.
But this actually happened in Gretna, a few miles from New Orleans. In its
description of the scenes of Tuesday night, the _Picayune_ mentions the
brutal chase of several colored men whom the mob sought to kill. In the
instances mentioned, the paper said:
Gretna had its full share of excitement between 8 and 11 o'clock last
night, in connection with a report that spread through the town that a
Negro resembling the slayer of Police Captain Day, of New Orleans, had
been seen on the outskirts of the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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