With law held in such contempt, it is not a matter of surprise that the
same city—one of the so-called queen cities of the South, should again
give itself over to a display of almost indescribable barbarism. This
time the mob made no attempt to conceal its identity, but reveled in the
contemplation of its feast of crime. Lee Walker, a colored man was the
victim. Two white women complained that while driving to town, a colored
man jumped from a place of concealment and dragged one of the two women
from the wagon, but their screams frightened him away. Alarm was given
that a Negro had made an attempted assault upon the women and bands of
men set out to run him down. They shot a colored man who refused to stop
when called. It was fully ten days before Walker was caught. He admitted
that he did attack the women, but that he made no attempt to assault
them; that he offered them no indecency whatever, of which as a matter of
fact, they never accused him. He said he was hungry and he was determined
to have something to eat, but after throwing one of the women out of the
wagon, became frightened and ran away. He was duly arrested and taken to
the Memphis jail. The fact that he was in prison and could be promptly
tried and punished did not prevent the good citizens of Memphis from
taking the law in their own hands, and Walker was lynched.
The _Memphis Commercial_ of Saturday, July 23, contains a full account of
the tragedy from which the following extracts are made:
At 12 o’clock last night, Lee Walker, who attempted to outrage Miss
Mollie McCadden, last Tuesday morning, was taken from the county jail
and hanged to a telegraph pole just north of the prison. All day rumors
were afloat that with nightfall an attack would be made upon the jail,
and as everyone anticipated that a vigorous resistance would be made, a
conflict between the mob and the authorities was feared.
At 10 o’clock Capt. O’Haver, Sergt. Horan and several patrol men were on
hand, but they could do nothing with the crowd. An attack by the mob was
made on the door in the south wall and it yielded. Sheriff McLendon and
several of his men threw themselves into the breach, but two or three of
the storming party shoved by. They were seized by the police but were not
subdued, the officers refraining from using their clubs. The entire mob
might at first have been dispensed by ten policemen who would use their
clubs, but the sheriff insisted that no violence be done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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