The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States — John Shaqi
The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United StatesWells-Barnett, Ida B.
History
The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States
Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
African Americans -- History -- 1877-1964; Lynching -- United States; Lynching -- United States -- Statistics
Words to describe the awful torture inflicted upon Smith cannot be found.
The Negro, for a long time after starting on the journey to Paris, did not
realize his plight. At last when he was told that he must die by slow
torture he begged for protection. His agony was awful. He pleaded and
writhed in bodily and mental pain. Scarcely had the train reached Paris
than this torture commenced. His clothes were torn off piecemeal and
scattered in the crowd, people catching the shreds and putting them away
as mementos. The child's father, her brother, and two uncles then gathered
about the Negro as he lay fastened to the torture platform and thrust hot
irons into his quivering flesh. It was horrible--the man dying by slow
torture in the midst of smoke from his own burning flesh. Every groan from
the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed
crowd of 10,000 persons. The mass of beings 600 yards in diameter, the
scaffold being the center. After burning the feet and legs, the hot
irons--plenty of fresh ones being at hand--were rolled up and down Smith's
stomach, back, and arms. Then the eyes were burned out and irons were
thrust down his throat.
The men of the Vance family having wreaked vengeance, the crowd piled all
kinds of combustible stuff around the scaffold, poured oil on it and set
it afire. The Negro rolled and tossed out of the mass, only to be pushed
back by the people nearest him. He tossed out again, and was roped and
pulled back. Hundreds of people turned away, but the vast crowd still
looked calmly on. People were here from every part of this section. They
came from Dallas, Fort Worth, Sherman, Denison, Bonham, Texarkana, Fort
Smith, Ark., and a party of fifteen came from Hempstead county, Arkansas,
where he was captured. Every train that came in was loaded to its utmost
capacity, and there were demands at many points for special trains to
bring the people here to see the unparalleled punishment for an
unparalleled crime. When the news of the burning went over the country
like wildfire, at every country town anvils boomed forth the announcement.
SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN AN ASYLUM
It may not be amiss in connection with this awful affair, in proof of our
assertion that Smith was an imbecile, to give the testimony of a
well-known colored minister, who lived at Paris, Texas, at the time of the
lynching. He was a witness of the awful scenes there enacted, and
attempted, in the name of God and humanity, to interfere in the programme.
He barely escaped with his life, was driven out of the city and became an
exile because of his actions. Reverend King was in New York about the
middle of February, and he was there interviewed for a daily paper for
that city, and we quote his account as an eye witness of the affair. Said
he:
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