The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race — John Shaqi
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White RaceCollins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
History
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race
Collins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
African Americans; Lynching; Southern States -- Race relations
“In a land of light and liberty, in an age of enlightenment
and law, the women of the South are prisoners to danger and
fear. While your women may walk from suburb to suburb, and
from township to township, without escort and without alarm,
there is not a woman of the South, wife or daughter, who would
be permitted or who would dare to walk at twilight unguarded
through the resident streets of a populous town, or to ride
the outside highways at midday.
“The terror of the twilight deepens with the darkness, and
in the rural regions every farmer leaves his home with
apprehension in the morning, and thanks God when he comes from
the fields at evening to find all well with the women of his
home.”[66:12]
A few words now as to the minor causes of lynching. In reading the
annual summary of lynchings given by the _Chicago Tribune_, one may
get the impression that Negroes are often lynched for very trifling
things. Investigation, however, is apt to show that back of any such
lynching was something much more serious than what appears on the face.
Many illustrations might be given but one may suffice: thirteen Negroes
lynched in Arkansas, March 26, 1904, cause, race prejudice.[66:13]
The following account of this affair is abbreviated from an Arkansas
paper:[66:14]
“Dewitt (Ark.), March 25.—Five Negroes who had been arrested
as a result of the race troubles at St. Charles, were taken
from the guards by a crowd of men last night and shot to
death. . . . The five victims make nine Negroes that have
been killed within the past week in the vicinity of St.
Charles. . . .
“A few days ago a difficulty occurred over a trivial matter
at St. Charles between a white man by the name of Searcy and
two Negroes by the names of Henry and Walker Griffin. One of
the Negroes threatened to knock Searcy in the head with a
beer bottle. The trouble was stopped for the time being, but
on Monday last the two Negroes met Searcy and his brother in
the store of Woolfords and Marsworthy in St. Charles, and the
difficulty was renewed. One of the Negroes without warning,
struck both of the Searcy boys over the head with a table
leg, rendering them unconscious and fracturing their skulls,
one of them to such an extent that he may die. The Deputy
Sheriff, . . . James Kirkpatrick, attempted to arrest the
Negroes and he, too, was knocked down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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