AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop. (1)

When people think of the savage act of the lynching of black people, many people think of black men:

-1930 lynchings of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana

-1913 lynching of William Brown in Douglas County, Nebraska

-1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

-1936 lynching of Lint Shaw in Royston, Georgia

And that is just a few names.

But, often left out of this list of names are those of black women who were brutally tortured, and raped, before they were lynched:

-Mary Turner

-Cordella Stevenson

-Laura Nelson

-Jenny Steers

-Ann Barksdale

-Marie Scott

-Maggie and Alma Howze

-Mae Murray Dorsey

-Dorothy Malcolm

-Ballie Crutchfield

-Belle Hathaway

-Mary Conley

-Bertha Lowman

 

That black women have been left out of the history of lynching comes as no surprise. Black women’s voices and history has never been accorded the same respect and validation as the history of black men. Black women’s history is only just now coming into the light, especially in the realm of lynching. It was the valiant efforts of black women, most notably the great Ida B. Wells- Barnett…………….

 

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

……………………and the black women organization known as the Anti-Lynching Crusaders, headed by Mary Talbert, who fought so hard to eradicate this brutally barbaric crime that this country perpetuated against its defenseless black citizens.  Ida’s contribution was crucial: she spoke out at a time when few people challenged the horror and injustice of the lynch law, and her research, writing and public speaking informed people of the true facts of the viciousness of lynching. Ida was convinced that the public’s awareness of the atrocity of lynching would lead towards its demise.

The Anti-Lynching Crusaders also worked diligently with the N.A.A.C.P. to get a federal bill passed to stop the lynching of America’s black citizens, most notably the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.  The bill did not come to fruition; the notorious racist senator Benjamin Tillman of  South Carolina filibustered in the senate thereby preventing the bill’s passage.

The “Million Women to Stop Lynching” campaign was to have young women stump the country to raise 1 million dollars, with citizens contributing one dollar per person to the campaign.

Taking a look at the Anti-Lynching Crusaders publishing the number of women lynched in America shows that lynching was anything but a crime carried out mainly against black men. The first document number 6 is from the correspondence between Ms. Talbert and the then executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., James Weldon Johnson,  in 1922 on how to tackle the cruelties of lynching, especially concerning the lynchings of black women. In document 7, they state cases of black women who were lynched. In document 8 they offer suggestions on how to recruit young women and girls to spread the word on ending the violence of lynching. At the time Ms. Talbert formed the Anti-Lynching Crusaders, there were approximately 83 women who had been lynched in the United States of America. And those are the KNOWN women who were lynched.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Document 6: Mary Talbert to James Weldon Johnson, 28 June 1922, NAACP Papers, Part 1: Meetings of the Board of Directors, Records of Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and Special Reports, 1909-1950, Library of Congress (Microfilm, Reel 24, Frames 410-12). Introduction        James Weldon Johnson became the executive secretary of the NAACP in December 1920 and alongside Walter White, his assistant, Johnson was the driving force behind the NAACP campaign for the Dyer Bill.[23] Mary B. Talbert wrote this letter to Johnson just eight days after the NAACP conference which inspired the formation of the Anti-Lynching Crusaders. Talbert indicated in this letter that the initial objective of the Crusaders was to focus on ending the lynching of colored women. The following two documents restate this view, but not enough documentary material has survived to evaluate whether the gendered goal stated in this letter became the sole justification for the Crusaders’ fundraising campaign. Documents 7 and 8 suggest that the prevention of lynching of both white and black women was the objective of the Crusaders, at least as stated in their publicity flyers.

 

Buffalo June 28- [1922]My Dear Mr. Johnson:       You certainly have it on me, but I am so rushed I guess I stand on my head part of the time. I really haven’t the time or money to come down again so soon. But I am going to make the sacrifice and be there Monday July 10.       I am also calling a small conference of women on July 8th. I firmly believe I can put this over–one million, but I can do it. I will enlist every secret organization in every state–and every church, including Colored Catholics. I believe it can be done. The only literature we will need will be for the 4000 speakers and workers, and the books for receipt. My plan is not to divide with any branch, but send money direct to National Office. The branch however can solicit their membership afterwards. This is to be a drive for one million women to suppress Lynching of Colored Women. I will see you July 10th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hastily,

M. B. Talbert

Document 7: “The Anti-Lynching Crusaders: The Lynching of Women,” [1922], NAACP Papers, Part 7: The Anti-Lynching Campaign, 1912-1955, Series B: Anti-Lynching Legislative and Publicity Files, 1916-1955, Library of Congress (Microfilm, Reel 3, Frames 570-73).

Introduction       In this and the following four documents, the organizers of the Anti-Lynching Crusaders articulated their objectives and imagined the form their organization would take. The horror of lynching and the prevalence of this crime had moved these women to action. While undated, this document and documents 8 and 9 were likely written in June or July of 1922 as the Crusaders took shape.       In this document the Crusaders spelled out their position on lynching and sought to dispel prevalent myths about lynch victims. Typically lynch victims were black men, but in this document, like several others reproduced in this project, the Crusaders emphasized the incidence of lynchings where women — black and white — were the victims. They asked: “how many people realize that since 1889 eighty-three women are known to have been lynched?” and included graphic descriptions of selected lynchings alongside statistics revealing the numbers of black and white women who had been lynched. The authors also sought to undermine the belief that lynching was typically a punishment doled out to rapists or attempted rapists. In only 16.6 per cent of lynchings, they argued, were lynch victims accused of rape. Moreover, the narratives they provided pointed to the prevalence of white men’s sexual abuse of African-American women and its connection to mob violence against blacks.

The Anti-Lynching Crusaders
The Lynching of Women.        The Anti-Lynching Crusaders are a band of women organized to stop lynching. Their slogan is: “A Million Women United to Stop Lynching.” They are trying to raise at least one dollar from every woman united with them and to finish this work on or before January 1st 1923. The reason that they believe this work to be of pressing importance is because of the facts as to lynching which confront every American. First of all, how many people realize that since 1889 eighty-three women are known to have been lynched? The record is as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

	State	Colored	White	Total
1.	Mississippi	14	1	15
2.	Texas	8	2	10
3.	Alabama	9	–	9
4.	Georgia	8	–	8
5.	Arkansas	6	1	7
6.	South Carolina	6	–	6
7.	Louisiana	4	1	5
8.	Tennessee	3	2	5
9.	Kentucky	2	2	4
10.	Oklahoma	2	2	4
11.	Florida	3	–	3
12.	Missouri	1	1	2
13.	North Carolina	–	1	1
14.	Virginia	–	1	1
15.	Nebraska	–	1	1
16.	W. Virginia	–	1	1
17.	Wyoming	–	1	1
				83

Let us consider a few facts.MARY TURNER        In May, 1918, a white plantation owner in Brooks County, Georgia, got into a quarrel with one of his colored tenants and the tenant killed him. A mob sought to avenge his death but could not find the suspected man. They therefore lynched another colored man named Hayes Turner. His wife, Mary Turner, threatened to have members of the mob arrested. The mob therefore started after her. She fled from home and was found there the next morning. She was in the eighth month of pregnancy but the mob of several hundred took her to a small stream, tied her ankles together and hung her on a tree head downwards. Gasoline was thrown on her clothes and she was set on fire. One of the members of the mob took a knife and split her abdomen open so that the unborn child fell from her womb to the ground and the child’s head was crushed under the heel of another member of the mob; Mary Turner’s body was finally riddled with bullets.TULSA        On Greenwood Avenue in the colored section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, two aged colored people, and man and his wife, lived. On the night of the Tulsa riot, May 31, 1921, a mob broke into the home and shot both the woman and her husband from behind. The home was then set on fire.MISSISSIPPI        The New York Tribune says, February 8, 1904:

“Luther Holbert, a Doddsville (Mississippi) Negro and his wife were burned at the stake for the murder of James Eastland, a white planter, and John Carr, a Negro. The planter was killed in a quarrel which arose when he came to Carr’s cabin, where he found Holbert, and ordered him to leave the plantation. Carr and a Negro, named Winters, were also killed.”Holbert and his wife fled the plantation but were brought back and burned at the stake in the presence of a thousand people . . . . . There is nothing . . . . . to indicate that Holbert’s wife had any part in the crime.”

OKLAHOMA        An Associated Press dispatch in 1911 reads as follows:

“At Okemah, Oklahoma, Laura Nelson, a colored woman accused of murdering a deputy sheriff who had discovered stolen goods at her house, was lynched together with her son, a boy about fifteen. The woman and her son were taken from the jail, dragged about six miles to the Canadian River and hanged from a bridge, The woman was raped by members of the mob before she was hanged.”

OKLAHOMA        An Associated Press dispatch in 1914 reads as follows:

“Marie Scott of Wagner County, a seventeen year old Negro girl, was lynched by a mob of white men because her brother killed one of the two white men who had assaulted her . . . . . The mob came to kill her brother but as he had escaped, lynched the girl instead.”

MISSISSIPPI        In 1918 Dr. E. L. Johnston, a white plantation owner, was killed and a colored boy was suspected of the deed. He was suspected because two colored girls, sisters, were working for Dr. Johnston and both were pregnant by the doctor. The boy was engaged to be married to the older. A mob took the two girls, the boy and the boy’s fifteen-year old brother to a bridge and hanged them.        It is asserted that none of these four knew anything about the killing; that Dr. Johnston had been killed by a white man for seducing a white woman.THE CAUSES OF LYNCHING        Most people assume that rape or attempted rape is practically the sole cause of lynching. This is not true. From 1889 up until July 1, 1922, there have been 3,465 known lynchings in the United States. In only 581 of these cases, or 16.6 percent, were there even an accusation of rape.        In the five year period from 1914 through 1918, 264 Negroes were lynched in the United States, not counting those killed in the East St. Louis riots. Of the 264 cases rape was the alleged cause in only 28 cases. On the other hand, in the single year of 1917 in New York County, one of the five counties forming the city of greater New York, 230 persons were indicted for rape, of whom 37 were indicted for rape in the first degree. Thus it may be seen that in one county alone, 9 more persons were indicted before courts for rape in the first degree than there were lynchings of Negroes for rape in the whole country during five years. And in the case of the Negroes there was only accusation and no proof. Among the 37 persons mentioned above there was not a single Negro.        From 1889 through July 1, 1922, the following causes of lynching has been alleged by the mob leaders in the news dispatched:

Murder	1291
Rape	581
Crimes against the person other than rape (i.e. “striking white man,” “talking back to a white man,” “refusing to turn out of road to let white boy pass,” etc.)	868
Crimes against property	343
Miscellaneous and petty offenses	454
Other crimes	254
No offense	183

In this connection two facts must be remembered. These alleged causes are telegraphed from the place where the lynchings take place and often the news gatherer is in sympathy with the mob. Secondly, if a mob is determined to lynch a man it will more surely gain public sympathy if rape is alleged rather than any other cause. It is fair to assume that in the above list the number of actual cases of rape had been greatly exaggerated.*    *    *

Document 8: “Plan Organization of 1,000,000 Women to Stop Lynching in United States,” [1922], NAACP Papers, Part 7: The Anti-Lynching Campaign, 1912-1955, Series B: Anti-Lynching Legislative and Publicity Files, 1916-1955, Library of Congress (Microfilm, Reel 3, Frame 559).Introduction        In the following document, the Anti-Lynching Crusaders described how their organization would be structured, where it would be located, and how it would recruit members. The organizers of the Crusaders hoped to tap into existing women’s clubs to staff their movement and as Document 9 indicates, recruiters were to approach Sunday schools and girls clubs to enlist the aid of girls between the ages of 8 and 18. The goal of ending lynching, the authors argued, was eminently suited to women whose task it was to ensure the “home is sacred from violence.” They asserted that lynching did not protect women from rape as this was a factor in only 16.6 percent of lynching incidents (see Document 7); instead, lynching had the undesirable effect of introducing violence into the home. As this document describes, the founders of the Crusaders envisioned the organization as a “mass movement of American women” who would ultimately protect the “fair name” of their nation.

PLAN ORGANIZATION OF 1,000,000 WOMEN TO
STOP LYNCHING IN UNITED STATES.ZONA GALE, NOVELIST, ACTIVE IN WISCONSINGUARANTY TRUST CO., ACCEPTS OFFICE OF DEPOSITORY         One million women throughout the United States are to be enrolled in an organization called “The Anti-Lynching Crusaders”, according to plans made public today by Mrs. Grace Johnson, New York representative of the movement. Headquarters have been established at 521 Michigan Avenue, Buffalo, New York, under the directorship of Mrs. Mary B. Talbert, winner of the Spingarn Medal for 1921, the first woman to achieve that distinction. The Guaranty Trust Co., of New York, has accepted the office of depository for the Anti-Lynching Crusaders.        The aims of the organization as set forth in an initial statement are:        “The Anti-Lynching Crusaders are a band of women organized to stop lynching. Their slogan is: ‘A Million Women United To Stop Lynching.’ They are trying to raise at least one dollar from every woman united with them and to finish this work on or before January 1st, 1923. The reason that they believe this work to be of pressing importance is because of the facts as to lynching which confront every American.”  (2)

Black women lynch mob victims:

 

Ballie Crutchfield (D. march 15, 1901)

We know nothing of her life, only of her death, as recorded in the March 17, 1901 edition of the New York Tribune under the headline  NEGRO SUSPECT ELUDES MOB; SISTER LYNCHED INSTEAD.

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Mar. 16- Ballie Crutchfield, a colored woman, met her death at the hands of a mob at Rome about midnight last night. The mob surrounded her home and took her to a bridge over Round Rock Lick Creek, near town. Her hands were tied behind her, and after being shot through the head her lifeless body was thrown into the creek. The body was removed to-day, and the jury of inquest returned a verdict that she met death at the hands of unknown persons.

“This Is Her First Lynching”, by Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) The New Yorker, September 8, 1934.

 

The lynching was the result of a suspicion that the negress was in some way connected with the theft of the contents of a pocketbook containing $120, which was lost by Walter Sampson last week. The purse was found on the ground by a negro boy, who was on his way to return it to the owner, when he was met by William Crutchfield, a brother of the dead woman, who induced the boy to give him the pocketbook upon representation that the contents were of no value. Mr. Sampson had Crutchfield arrested, and he was taken to the house of Squire Bains for safekeeping.

That night a mob visited the house of Squire Bains and took Crutchfield from the custody of the Sheriff. The mob started with Crutchfield to the place selected for execution, when he broke from them and succeeded in effecting his escape in the dark.

This so enraged the mob that they suspected Crutchfield’s sister Ballie of being implicated in the theft, and last night’s work was the culmination of that suspicion.”

(“The Book Of African-American Women:  150 Crusaders, Creators and Upliftors”)

Although the overwhelming majority of lynch mob victims of white mob violence were men and boys, lynchers did not discriminate. Ballie Crutchfiled was not the first, nor only, black American woman who lost her life to a white mob, and she would not be the last. For example, the murder of Jennie Steers in 1903 was reported in the Chicago Record-Herald:

 

“SHREVEPORT, La., July 26—-Jennie Steers, a negro woman, who, it is charged, gave 16 year old Elizabeth Dolan a glass of poisoned lemonade, causing her death, was lynched on the Beard Plantation near here last night. The mob took her to a tree, placed a rope around her neck and demanded a confession. The woman refused and was hanged.”

 

(“The Book of African American Women:  150 Crusaders, Creators and Upliftors”)

 

ATLANTA CONSTITUTION

October 9, 1916

NEGRESS TAKEN FROM JAIL AND RIDDLED WITH BULLETS

ARLINGTON, Ga.,  Oct.  4—Mary Conley, the negro woman whose son, Sam Conley, killed E. M.  Melvin, a prominent white planter, near here Monday, was taken from the guardinghouse in Leary some time during the night and lynched. Her body, riddled with bullets, was found by the roadside by parties coming into Arlington during the early morning hours.

When Melvin reprimanded Sam Conley for the way the latter was neglecting his work the negro’s mother showed resentment. It is claimed that Melvin then slapped and grappled with her, whereupon Sam Conley picked up an iron scale weight and struck the white man on the head in defense of the mother. Melvin died a short time later.

Conley escaped, but his mother was captured and put in jail here.

The mob had no difficulty in breaking into the guardhouse, which was unguarded, the officers not anticipating trouble.

The lynching was very quiet.”

(From,  “100 Years Of Lynchings”)

Although her name is not mentioned among the above women’s names, the case of little Mildrey Brown stands out in its poignancy. Ida Wells investigated 728 lynchings at a time when they were routinely being carried out in this country. Mrs. Wells concluded that most victims were killed for alleged crimes like “incendiarism,” “race prejudice,” “quarreling with whites,” and “making threats.”Mrs. Wells used as an example one of the more horrible lynchings in the case of little Mildrey.”So great is the southern prejudice, they…hung poor little 13-year-old Mildrey Brown at Columbia, South Carolina, Oct. 7 on circumstantial evidence that she poisoned a white infant. “If her guilt had been proven unmistakable, had she been white, Mildrey Brown would never have been hung. The country would have been aroused and South Carolina disgraced forever.”  (3)

Ms. Wells, while on her campaign through England speaking out against the atrocities of American lynch mob injustice, also spoke of a particularly vicious lynching of a defenseless black woman who suffered a monstrous death under the following circumstances:

“Their consciousness raised about the situation in the United States, now, as Wells reported, people were coming up to her after her lectures, expressing indignation when they heard of an American lynching. She was keeping up with the reports as well, but on one occasion someone told her of a recent incident that she had not yet heard about, and the cruelty and the shock of it unsettled her.

“A black woman in San Antonio, Texas, Ida was told, had been boxed up in a barrell with nails driven through the sides and then rolled up and down a hill until she was dead.

“I sat there as if turned to stone,” Ida recalled, “with tears rolling down my cheeks with this new evidence of outrage upon my people, and the apathy of the American white people.”

-excerpt from “Ida, A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching”, by Paula J. Giddings, Amistad (Harper Collins Publishers), pg. 292.

The mob lynchings of black Americans  was a very brutal act of ultimate savagery, bordering on sadistic depravity:

Many of these victims were ritualistically tortured.  In 1904, Luther Holbert and his wife were burned to death. They were tied to trees and while the funeral pyres were being prepared, they were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at a time was chopped off. The fingers were distributed as souvenirs. The ears. . .were cut off. Holbert was beaten severely, his skull fractured and one of his eyes, knocked out with a stick, hung by a shred from the socket.  Members of the mob then speared the victims with a large corkscrew, “the spirals tearing out big pieces of. . . .flesh every time it was withdrawn.”  (4)

CHICAGO DEFENDER

December 18, 1915

RAPE, LYNCH NEGRO MOTHER

Columbus, Miss., Dec. 17—Thursday a week ago Cordella Stevens was found early in the morning hanging to a limb of a tree, without any clothing, dead. She had been hung Wednesday night after a mob had visited her cabin, taken her from her husband and lynched her after they maltreated her.  The body was found about fifty yards north of the Mobile & Ohio R. R., and the thousands and thousands of passengers that came in and out of this city last Thursday morning were horrified at the sight. She was hung there from the night before by a bloodthirsty mob who had gone to her home, snatched her from slumber, and dragged her through the streets without any resistance. They carried her to a far-off spot, did their dirt and then strung her up. The mob took the woman about 10 o’clock at night. After that no one knows exactly what happened. The condition of the body showed plainly that she had been mistreated. The body was still hanging in plain view of the morbid crowd that came to gaze at it till Friday morning, when it was cut down and the inquest held.

“The jury returned a verdict that she came to death at the hands of persons unknown.”  (5)
Black women have been hunted down through many cities across America during race riots and pogroms; they have been drug from their homes and hung from lamp posts; they have had their children torn from their arms and seen those children’s brains dashed upon the pavement; they have been the objects of insult and outrage at every turn; they have had their homes burnt down over their heads; they have seen their children not allowed to enter schools, they have had their children sold from their loving embrace, before the child could barely come into the world—-black women have suffered from much cruelty and babarity in this country.

And that the history of the lynching of black women in America has been hidden so long from knowledge is unconscionable. As members of the community most severely targeted by lynch-law in the New South, black American women remain virtually invisible to historians examining this phenomenon. Though scholars acknowledge the lynching of black women, their deaths are presented as parenthetical, as footnotes, as afterthoughts, and therefore unworthy of historical analysis. Following in the footsteps of contemporary anti-lynching advocates  who failed to view the lynching of black women as a unique and separate occurrence, current and past scholars have overlooked the fact that many Southern white mobs purposely and willfully sought out and brutalized black women.

Assigning the experiences of lynched black women to the margins widens the historical void, negating the importance of understanding that the rapes and lynchings of black women ties in with the lynchings of black men. First, it is the denial of giving an important aspect of black American women’s history. Whether one or one thousand women died at the hands of white southern mobs, those deaths must be counted and included in our collective remembering of black women’s lives in the post-Reconstruction South. Second, scholar’s avoidance of examining lynched black women suggest that this area of inquiry would add nothing to our understanding of lynching or southern mob violence. Unfortunately, this assumption is made without research or investigation, hence without basis. Additionally, as long as current scholarship continues to treat the mob murders of black American women as irrelevant, the implication is that their deaths held no meaning in local black communities, and had little, if any, impact on the southern community at-large. However, the lynching of black women was significant. It was an attempt to undermine black families and destabilize the entire black American community, while simultaneously reaffirming southern whites’ rabid power. In other words, terrorism at its most brutally sadistic and depraved. Finally, the exclusion of lynched women inadvertently masks the epidemic of racialized sexual violence experienced by many southern black women. It was a unique form of violence that permeated their everyday lives, often influencing decisions made and actions taken. In the bodies of lynched women we can see clearly the legacy of that violence. 

To begin addressing some of the aforementioned historical voids, the buried history of black women’s lynchings is examined in the reported lynching of black American women in the South, as referenced by the inclusion of the Anti-Lynching Crusaders and the efforts of Ida B. Wells-Barnett in my essay.  Researching more information and documentation is needed, as lynched black women are located at the center of their own stories where their experiences can be identified, and the condition of their lives and deaths explored.

Placing black women at the center,  recognizes them as contributors to as well as victims of the entire southern race, class, and gender matrix. As laborers, grass root activists and organizers, mothers of black children, sexual and romantic partners to black and white men alike, black American women were an integral part of life in the New South. A race, class and gender framework reveals how those various roles made black women a valued group of producers and reproducers, yet also vulnerable to the South’s penchant for sexualized racial violence. Additionally, factoring in community membership as another target identity, we can discern how black women’s various roles made them a valued group of producers and reproducers. Yet, that unique status also made them vulnerable to racialized sexual violence.

As blacks, as women, as workers branded with the stigma of slavery, black American women not only faced economic exploitation and socio-political marginalization, but also beatings, sexual assaults, and murder. Indeed,  the same forces that allowed for the exploitation of all black women, similarly created a dynamic that led to the lynching of others.  (6)

Lynching.
 

It is time for America to come to terms with learning of and acknowledging this cruel part of American history. That the history of black women, men and children being lynched, tortured, burned at the stake and body parts fought over by savages who worshipped lawlessness and bestial behaviour is not taught in American public schools comes as no surprise.

How can such a subject be taught in the school system when this country still has not come to terms with the holocaust it has perpetuated against its black citizens for over 400+ years?

Until America finally decides to commit itself to a Reconciliation Committee that seeks to address all the legacies of the vestiges of slavery, segregation, and lynching, America can expect to continue to have race problems well into the future, as long as this country exists.

In June, 2005, the U. S. Senate after a contentious debate on the Senate floor, finally issued a formal apology to the black families of the victims of lynching. It (those members of the Senate who voted for this apology which as far as I am concerned, they can shove up a certain rectal orifice) finally did apologize for the callous  disregard that this country’s legislative body showed when it had the chance to enact laws to stop lynchings. Too late for the tens of thousands of victims, both known and unknown, who fell prey to the brutality of lynch mob injustice.

 

HERE IS A PARTIAL LIST OF THE KNOWN BLACK WOMEN LYNCH VICTIMS:

Date	Name	Lynched with	County/City State	Allegation
1870
Sept	Mrs. John Simes		Henry Co KY	Republican
1872
Nov	Mrs. Hawkins (m)		Fayette Co KY	Republican
	—– Hawkins (d)		Fayette Co KY	Republican
1876
May	Mrs. Ben French		Warsaw KY	murder
1878
4 Nov	Maria Smith		Hernando MS	murder
1880
29 July	Milly Thompson		Clayton GA
6 Dec	Julia Brandt (15)	Joe Barnes Vance Brandt	Charleston SC	theft/murder
1881
*4 Sept	Ann (Eliza) Cowan (35)		Newberry SC	arson
1885
29 Sept	Harriet Finch	Jerry Finch John PattishalLee Tyson	Chatham Co NC	murder
1886
Sept	—–		Cummins Pulaski KY
25 July	Mary Hollenbeck		Tattnall GA	murder
18 Aug	Eliza Wood		Madison TN	murder
1887
28 April	Gracy Blanton		W. Carroll LA	theft
1891
15 April	Roxie Elliott		Centerville AL
9 May	Mrs. Lee		Lowndes MS	son accused of murder
1 Aug	Eliza Lowe		Henry AL	arson
	Ella Williams		Henry AL	arson
28 Sept	Louise Stevenson	Grant White	Hollandale MS	murder
1892
3 Feb	Mrs. Martin		Sumner Co TN	son accused of arson
10 Feb	Mrs. Brisco(w)		AK	race prejudice
10 Feb	Jessie Dillingham		Smokeyville TX	train wrecking
11 March	Ella (15)		Rayville LA	attempted murder/poisoning
2 Nov	Mrs. Hastings(m)	son (16)	Jonesville LA	husband accused
	Hastings(d,14)		Jonesville LA	father accused of murder
21 Dec	Cora		Guthrie,Indian Territory
1893
19 March	Jessie Jones		Jellico TN	murder
18 July	Meredith Lewis		Roseland LA	murder
15 Sept	Emma Fair	Paul Hill Paul ArcherWilliam Archer	Carrolton AL	arson
16 Sept	Louisa Carter (Lou)(m)		Jackson MS	poisoning a well
	Mahala Jackson (d)		Jackson MS	poisoning a well
1893
Nov	Mrs. Phil Evens (m)		Bardstown KY
	Evans (d)		Bardstown KY
	Evans (d)		Bardstown KY
4 Nov	Mary (Eliza) Motlow		Lynchburg VA	arson
9 Nov	Rilla Weaver		Clarendon AK
1894
6 March	unknown Negro woman		Pulaski AK
16 July	Marion Howard		Scottsville KY
24 July	Negro woman		Simpson Co MS	race prejudice
1895
20 March	Harriet Tally		Petersburg TN	arson
21 April	Mary Deane		Greenville AL	murder
	Alice Green		Greenville AL	murder
	Martha Green		Greenville AL	murder
1 July	Mollie Smith		Trigg County KY
20 July	Mrs. Abe Phillips (m)	unnamed child (1) Hannah Phillips (d)	Mant TX
23 July	Negro woman		Brenham TX
2 Aug	Mrs. James Mason	James Mason (h)	Dangerfield TX
*28 Aug	Negro woman		Simpson MS	miscegenation
26 Sept	Felicia Francis		New Orleans LA
11 Oct	Catherine Matthews		Baton Rouge LA	poisoning
2 Dec	Hannah Kearse	(Walker,m) Isom K. (s)	Colleton SC	stealing a bible
1896
*12 Jan	Charlotte Morris		Jefferson LA	miscegenation/living with white “husband”
1 Aug	Isadora Morely		Selma AL	murder
18 Nov	Mimm Collier		Steenston MS
1897
9 Feb	Negro woman		Carrolton MS	theft/arson
5 March	Otea Smith		Julietta FL	murder
12 May	Amanda Franks		Jefferson AL	murder
	Molly White		Jefferson AL	murder
1898
22 Feb	Dora Baker	(d,2) Frazier Baker(f)	Williamsburg SC	race prejudice
9 Nov	Rose Etheridge		Phoenix SC	murder
13 Nov	Eliza Goode		Greenwood SC	murder
1899 23 March	Willia Boyd		Silver City MS
1900
2 March	Mrs. Jim Cross (m)		Lowndes AL
	Cross (d)		Lowndes AL
7 July	Lizzie Pool		Hickory Plains AK	race prejudice
25 July	Anna Mabry		New Orleans LA	race prejudice
28 Aug	Negro woman	Negro man	Forrest City NC	theft of peaches
1901
5 March	Ballie Crutchfield		Rome TN	theft
20 March	Terry Bell		Terry MS
1 Aug	Betsey McCray (m)	Belfiield (s)	Carrolton MS	knowledge of murder
	Ida McCray (d)		Carrolton MS	knowledge of murder
4 Oct	Negro woman		Marshall TX	assault
1902
15 Feb	Bell Duly		Fulton KY
27 Dec	Mrs.Emma Wideman	Oliver Wideman	Troy SC	murder
1903
	Negro woman			murder of Mrs. Frank Matthews
8 June	Negro woman	Negro men (4)	Smith County MS	murder
24 June	Lamb Whittle		Concordia LA
*25 July	Jennie Steers		Beard Plantation, Shreveport LA	murder by poison
28 Oct	Jennie McCall		Hamilton FL	by mistake
1904
7 Feb	Holbert	Luther Holbert	Doddsville MS	burning barn
*14 June	Marie Thompson		Lebanon Junction KY	murder
30 August	unknown		Bates Union AK
1906
7 Nov	Meta Hicks		Mitchell GA	husband accused of murder
1907
20 March	Negro woman		Stamps AK
	Negro woman		Stamps AK
21 May	Mrs. Padgett (m)	Son	Tattnall GA	son accused of rape
	Padgett (d)		Tattnall GA	brother accused of rape
1908
3 Oct	Mrs. D. Walker (m)		Fulton KY	race hatred
	Walker (d)		Fulton KY	race hatred
1909
9 Feb	Robby Baskin		Houston MS	murder
30 July	Emile Antione		Grand Prairie LA	assault
1910
April 5	Laura Mitchell		Lonoke AK	murder
*25 Aug	Laura Porter		Monroe LA	disreputable house
1911
*25 May	Laura Nelson	L.D. (14)(s)	Okemah OK	murder
2 Sept	Hattie Bowman	Ed Christian	Greenville FL	theft
1912
**	Pettigrew (d)	Ben Pettigrew (f)	Savannah TN
**	Pettigrew (d)		Savannah TN
	Negro woman		Codele GA
*23 Jan	Belle Hathaway	John Moore Eugene HammingDusty Cruthfield	Hamilton GA	tenants of murdered man
11 Feb	Negro woman	Negro children (3)	Beaumont TX
13 Feb	Mary Jackson	George Saunders	Marshall TX
25 June	Ann Boston		Pinehurst GA	murder
1914
13 Mar**	Mrs. Joe Perry (m,w)	Joe Perry (h) SonChild	Henderson NC
*31 Mar	Marie Scott (17)		Muskogee OK	murder
28 May/June**	Jennie Collins		Shaw MS	aiding in escape
17 June	Paralee Collins (m)	Issac (s)	West Plains MO
*12 July	Rosa Richardson (27-35)		Providence/Santee SC	murder
25 Nov	Jane Sullivan	Fred Sullivan (h)	Byhalia MS	burning a barn
1915
15 Jan	Eula Charles	(Barber,d) Dan Barber (f)	Jasper County GA	parents accused of bootlegging
	Ella Charles	(Barber,d) Jesse Barber(b)	Jasper County GA	parents accused of bootlegging
May	Briley		Pescott AK
17 Aug	Hope Hull		AL
*8 Dec	Cordella Stevenson		Columbus MS
1916
19 Aug	Mary Dennis		Newberry FL	aiding in escape
	Stella Long		Newberry FL	aiding in escape
4 Oct**	Mary Conley		Arlington GA	complicity in murder
1917
1 March	Emma Hooper		Hammond LA	murder
1918
17 May	Mary Turner (pregnant)		Brooks Co GA	taught a lesson
4 June	Sarah Cabiness	unnamed children(2) Bessie Cabiness(d)Pete (s)Tenola Cabiness(d)Cute Cabiness (d)	Huntsville TX	threatening white man
4 Sept	Mrs. James Eyer		Marion GA
*21 Dec	Alma House (pregnant)	Andrew Clark	Shubuta MS	murder
1919
5 May	unknown Negro woman		Holmes MS	race prejudice
1920
2 Nov	unknown Negro woman		Ocoee FL	race prejudice
18 Nov	Minnie Ivory	Willie Ivory Will Perry	Douglass GA	murder
1921
9 April	Rachel Moore		Rankin MS	race prejudice
1922
25 June	Mercy Hall		Oklahoma City OK	strike activity
1923
5 Jan	Sarah Carrier		Rosewood FL	race prejudice
	Lesty Gordon		Rosewood FL	race prejudice
29 Sept	Negro woman		Pickens MS
31 Sept	Negro woman		Holmes MS	race prejudice
1924
23 June	Penny Westmoreland	Marcus Westmoreland	Spalding GA
19 July	—– Sheldon		Meridian MS
11 Sept	Sarah Williams		Shreveport LA
1925
*25 April	Annie Lowman (m)		Aiken SC	defending her daughter
1926
25 April	Lily Cobb		Birmingham AL
25 May	Eliza Bryant		Duplin NC	success
8 Oct	Bertha Lowman(d,s1)	Demon (b)	Aiken SC	lynched after acquitted of murder
11 Nov	Sally Brown	Clarence (c)	Houston TX
1928
25 Dec	Negro woman (1)		Eros LA	dispute w/ whites
	Negro woman (2)		Eros LA	dispute w/whites
1930
12 Feb	Laura Wood		Salisbury NC
5 July	Viola Dial (pregnant)		Narketta MS	race prejudice
6 July	Mrs. James Eyers		Markeeta MS	race prejudice
10 Sept	Holly White	Pigg Lockett	Scooba MS
1931
May	Mrs. Wise		Frankfort VA	resisting Klan
1946
*25 July	Dorothy Malcolm(w)	Roger Malcolm (h)	Monroe GA	able to identify mob members
	Mae Dorsey	George Dorsey (h)	Monroe GA	able to identify mob members
1956
*25 March	Angenora Spencer		Hyde NC	miscegenation
1957
18 Nov	Mrs. Frank Clay		Henderson NC	dispute

*Crystal Nicole Femister has a similar chart in the Appendix of her dissertation “Ladies and Lynching”: The Gendered Discourse of Mob Violence in the New South, 1880-1930. Having used overlapping sources accounts for similarities although there are differences in categories, variations of names, locations and some of the other content.

SOURCE

***************************************************************************

LAURA NELSON

A week earlier, Laura tries to escape. She bites the jailor in the scuffle and he calls her wild and unruly.  He recounts that as he choked her back into the makeshift women’s cell in the courthouse, Laura begged he kill her. (7)

The two negroes were taken west of town six miles to the Canadian river bridge in a negro settlement and were swung from the bridge. Both the woman and boy were gagged with tow sacks. The rope was half inch hemp, and the loops were made in the regular hangman’s knot.  The woman’s arms were swinging at her side, untied, while about twenty feet away swung the boy with his clothes partly torn off and his hands tied with saddle string. The only marks on either body were that made by the ropes upon the necks. Gently swaying in the wind, the ghastly spectacle was discovered this morning by a negro boy taking his cow to water.  (8)

The lynching came as a complete surprise to the sheriff’s forces and the people….and while the general sentiment was adverse to the method, it is generally thought that the negroes got what would have been due them under due process of law.   (9)

The woman was very small of stature, very black, and about thirty-five years old, and vicious….the boy was about fourteen years old, slender and tall, yellow and ignorant. (9)

Janitor Frank Jacobs of the court house received a scare Sunday morning that he will remember for the rest of his life. He had business in the room in the county court house in which the female cell is located and entered the room before it was quite daylight. Not finding what he wanted he struck a match to look around, when he heard a noise in the female cell, and turning in that direction was almost paralyzed with fright to see standing in the cell door a negro woman clad in long white garments. He knew in an instant that the ghost of the Nelson woman had visited the cell from which she was taken, and as soon as he could move he started out of there. A few boxes, chairs etc., that got in his way were run over, and parties hearing the noise would have thought a half dozen mules were being driven down the court house stairs.

The apparition was the negro woman, Mable Brown, brought up from Weleetka Saturday evening and place in the cell without Mr. Jacobs knowing of her presence there.  Hearing him moving around the woman got up to see what it was, and the ghostly robes were nothing more frightful than a long white night gown.  (11)

  “Grief and a haunting unreality permeate this photo. The corpse of Laura Nelson retains an indissoluble femininity despite the horror inflicted upon it. Specterlike, she seems to float – thistledown light and implausibly still. For many African Americans, Oklahoma was a destination of hope, where they could prosper without the laws in southern states that codified racism and repression. What was to be a promised land proved to be a great disillusionment. “District Judge Caruthers convened a grand jury in June 1911 to investigate the lynching of the Negro woman and her son. In his instructions to the jury, he said, “The people of the state have said by recently adopted constitutional provision that the race to which the unfortunate victims belonged should in large measure be divorced from participation in our political contests, because of their known racial inferiority and their dependent credulity, which very characteristic made them the mere tool of the designing and cunning. It is well known that I heartily concur in this constitutional provision of the people’s will. The more then does the duty devolve upon us of a superior race and of greater intelligence to protect this weaker race from unjustifiable and lawless attacks.”  (12)

Laura Nelson.   (The barefoot corpse of Laura Nelson. May 25, 1911, Okemah, Oklahoma. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 3 1/2 x 5 1/2″ Etched in the negative:”copyright-1911-g.h.farnum, okemah. okla 2898.” Stamp on reverse, “unmailable.” Photographer: George H. Farnum, 1911.

This is the only known photo of a lynched black woman. Laura was murdered with her 14-year-old son Lawrence, after he was castrated by members of the mob, in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1911. She was raped by members of the mob, before she and her child were brutally murdered.

The lynching of Laura Nelson and her son, several dozen onlookers. May 25, 1911, Okemah, Oklahoma. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 5 1/2 x 3 1/2″

Etched in the negative: “1911 copy right, g.h. farnum, okemah. okla\ 2897.”

The lynching of Lawrence W. Nelson, May 25, 1911 in Okemah, Oklahoma. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 3 1/2 x 5 1/2. Etched in the negative: “copyright-1911-g.h.farnum, okemah. okla 2894.” Photo by George H. Farnum. The image was published in 1911 as a postcard.

LINKS:

http://withoutsanctuary.org/

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html

http://tqnyc.org/NYC030395/DorotheaLange/postcards.htm

http://womhist.binghamton.edu/lynch/doc6.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlynching.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=845713&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

http://www.gaypasg.org/gaypasg/PressClippings/2005/Jun/The%20Senate%20Apologizes,%20Mostly.htm

http://www.blackstate.com/senate-lynching.html

http://www.americablog.com/2005/06/senate-offices-intentionally-lying.html

http://www.observer.com/node/37453

http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/print.php?id=421

http://archive.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/06/28/apology_for_lynching/index.html

http://landrieu.senate.gov/lynching/index.cfm

REFERENCES:

1.  “Strange Fruit”,  Abel Meerpol,  1939.

2.   Anti-Lynching Crusaders, Documents 6, 7 and 8.

3.  Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “1895 Southern Horrors:  Lynch Law in All Its Phases”.

4.   “Lynching, Federalism and the Intersecton of Race and Gender in the Progressive Era”, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism,  by Barbara Holden-Smith.

5.  100 Years of Lynching”,  by Ralph Ginsburg, Black Classic Press, 1996.

6.  “Of These, One was a Woman:  The Lynching of African-American Women, 1885-1946, by Marie Rose Johnson, 1998.

7.   Various newspaper accounts. Thursday, May 25, 1911: The Okemah Ledger, Okemah, OK ‘Lynchers Avenge the Murder of Geo. Loney, The Nelson Woman and Her Boy are Taken from the County Jail by Unknown Parties and Swung from Bridge Across North Canadian’; The Independent Vol.7 No. 36 Okemah, Okfuskee County, OK ‘Woman and Boy Lynched, A Mob Enters the County Jail Last Night and Take two Negro Prisoners Whom They Hang from a Bridge’.  Friday, May 26, 1911: The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, OK ‘Woman Lynched by Side of Son, Okfuskee County Mob Takes Double Revenge for Officer’s Death, Bridge is Gallows’; Tulsa World, Tulsa, Ok ‘Mother and Son are Lynched at Okeemah, jailor is surprised and bodies later found dangling from a bridge’.

8.       Okemah Ledger May 25, 1911 ‘Lynchers  Avenge the Murder of Geo. Loney. The Nelson woman and her boy are taken from the county jail by unknown parties and swung from bridge across North Canadian’

9.      The Okemah Ledger, Okemah, OK Thursday, May 25, 1911 p.1

10.      The Okemah Ledger, Okemah, OK Thursday, May 25, 1911 p.1

11.      The Okemah Ledger Thursday, July 13, 1911 ‘Seen the Nelson Woman’s Ghost in Female Cell’

12.  Journal E:  Without Sanctuary – Lynching Photography in America”

13. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States: 1889-1918, Greenwood Press Reprint, New Edition of 1919 Edition, (February 23, 1970)

14. “Stranger Fruit: The Lynching of Black Women – The Cases of Rosa Richardson and Marie Scott”, by Maria de Longoria (dissertation that opens in a pdf format).

15. Kara Lynch: “episode 3: Meet Me in Okemah“.

AUDIO/VIDEO CLIPS:

http://odeo.com/audio/157180/view

VIDEO OF PHILLIP DRAY LECTURE ON HIS BOOK, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, taped February 4, 2003, at Boston University.

RELATED REFERENCES:

 

1. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack, and Hilton Als (Hardcover – Feb 1, 2000)  (48)

2. 100 Years of Lynchings by Ralph Ginzburg (Paperback – Nov 22, 1996)  (11)

3. Lynching Photographs (Defining Moments in American Photography) by Dora Apel and Shawn Michelle Smith (Paperback – Jan 5, 2008)  (1)

4. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Philip Dray (Paperback – Jan 7, 2003)  (21)

 

5.

The Other Reconstruction: Where Violence and Womanhood Meet in the Writings of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Nella Larsen (Studies in African American History and Culture) by Ericka M Miller (Hardcover – Nov 1, 1999)

   (2)

6.

The Book of African American Women: 150 Crusaders, Creators, and Uplifters by Tonya Bolden (Paperback – Jan 2004)

   (2)

7.

Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America by Laura Wexler (Paperback – Dec. 30, 2003)

   (11)

LAND OWNERSHIP MADE MANY BLACKS TARGETS

BOOK EXCERPT:  “AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IN REMEMBERANCE OF MARY TURNER, MAE MURRAY DORSEY AND DOROTHY MALCOLM:

 

REMEMBERING MARY TURNER

THE MARY TURNER PROJECT

MOORE’S FORD MEMORIAL COMMITTEE, INC.

AFRICAN AMERICAN HOLOCAUST

 

 

IMAGERY OF LYNCHING: BLACK MEN, WHITE WOMEN AND THE MOB

 

 

STRANGE FRUIT: PLAYS ON LYNCHING BY AMERICAN WOMEN