Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its PhasesWells-Barnett, Ida B.
History
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases
Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
Lynching
Near Vicksburg, Miss., a murder was committed by a gang of burglars. Of
course it must have been done by Negroes, and Negroes were arrested for
it. It is believed that two men, Smith Tooley and John Adams belonged to a
gang controlled by white men and, fearing exposure, on the night of July
4, they were hanged in the Court House yard by those interested in
silencing them. Robberies since committed in the same vicinity have been
known to be by white men who had their faces blackened. We strongly
believe in the innocence of these murdered men, but we have no proof. No
other news goes out to the world save that which stamps us as a race of
cutthroats, robbers and lustful wild beasts. So great is Southern hate and
prejudice, they legally(?) hung poor little thirteen-year-old Mildrey
Brown at Columbia, S.C., Oct. 7, on the circumstantial evidence that she
poisoned a white infant. If her guilt had been proven unmistakably, had
she been white, Mildrey Brown would never have been hung.
The country would have been aroused and South Carolina disgraced forever
for such a crime. The Afro-American himself did not know as he should have
known as his journals should be in a position to have him know and act.
Nothing is more definitely settled than he must act for himself. I have
shown how he may employ the boycott, emigration and the press, and I feel
that by a combination of all these agencies can be effectually stamped out
lynch law, that last relic of barbarism and slavery. "The gods help those
who help themselves."
End of Project Gutenberg's Southern Horrors, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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