Part 2

On November 9, telegrams of inquiry and appeal for legal action in the case of the lynching of George Taylor at Rolesville, near Raleigh, N. C., were sent to Governor Bickett of North Carolina, to the County Solicitor of Wake County and to the Chamber of Commerce of Raleigh, of which that to the Governor was acknowledged. The Governor said that he agreed with the points made in the telegram and would back the County Solicitor in efforts to fix the blame for the affair. The Solicitor carried on an investigation for two weeks, examining 21 white and 9 colored witnesses. The coroner's jury ran true to form, finding that the victim came to his death at the hands of "parties unknown" to the jury.

The two leading Raleigh newspapers, one of them owned by Secretary of the Navy Daniels, carried strong editorial comment against the lynching and criticized the dereliction of the officers in allowing their prisoner to be taken from them. One of them commented directly and favorably on the Association's telegrams to the Governor.

Ten days later, as has been mentioned on a preceding page of this report, the same Governor appealed successfully to an adjacent army camp for help to support the mayor and "home guards" of Winston-Salem in holding the local jail against a mob which was attempting to seize a Negro prisoner to lynch him.

The Chambers of Commerce of Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama, acknowledged telegrams and letters of the Association sent during November, saying that they supported our view (that the lynchers of Will Byrd and Henry Whiteside should be ascertained and legal action against them taken) and that the Governor had ordered the action referred to on a previous page of this report, that of instructing the attorney general of the state to push an investigation of the lynchings at Sheffield and Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Space forbids the citation of further examples. In many cases, however, no direct effect was produced by the Association's long distance efforts. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that no beneficial results can be credited to such of the Association's forty telegraphic inquiries (accompanied by newspaper publicity) as had occasioned no immediate action. Correspondents have written and callers at the National Headquarters have assured the National Officers of the value of this publicity work. In some cases local leaders among the white citizens have called upon colored people to assure them of their concern for the well being and protection of the _good_ Negro and incidentally, we are told, to advise them against allying themselves with "northern agitators."

That the pressure of national opinion is felt and feared, even in the center of the lynching area, is evidenced by such editorials as that following a protest against a Louisana lynching, in which a local editor devoted a column of matter to "lambasting" the National Secretary under the caption "No Outside Scolds Needed." It was asked why this "Association with the long name" was endeavoring to hold Louisana up to the _scorn of the country_, etc., _ad lib._

OUTSTANDING EVENTS ASIDE FROM ASSOCIATION EFFORTS

The most notable events affecting the anti-lynching campaign, aside from the Association's efforts, have been the President's July 26 pronouncement against lynching, the formation of the Tennessee Law and Order League to suppress lynching in March, and its announced campaign to stimulate the organization of similar movements in all the Southern states and the offer of _The San Antonio Express_ heretofore mentioned.[13] The latter offer is, of course, of scant promise for effective service in the campaign.

LYNCHING RECORD FOR 1918

January 17--Hazelhurst, Miss., Sam Edwards, burned to death; charged with murder of Bera Willes, seventeen-year-old white girl.

" 26--Benton, La., Jim Hudson, hanged; living with a white woman.

February 7--Fayetteville, Ga., "Bud" Cosby, hanged; intent to rob and kidnapping.

" 12--Estill Springs, Tenn., Jim McIllheron, burned; accused of shooting to death two white men. G. W. Lych, who hid McIllheron, was shot to death.

" 23--Fairfax, S. C., Walter Best, hanged; accused of murder.

" 26--Rayville, La., Jim Lewis, Jim Jones and Will Powell, two hanged and one shot to death; accused of stealing hogs. In the fray one white man and one Negro were killed.

" 26--Willacoochee, Ga., Ed. Dansy, shot; he had killed two white officers and wounded three others.

March 16--Monroe, La., George McNeel and John Richards, hanged; alleged attack upon a white woman.

" 22--Crawfordsville, Ga., Spencer Evans, hanged; convicted of criminal assault upon a colored woman at the February term of court and sentenced to be hanged, but a mob took him from jail and lynched him.

" 26--Lewiston, N. C., Peter Bazemore; alleged attack upon a white woman.

April 4--Collinsville, Ill., Robert P. Praeger, hanged (white); accused of making disloyal remarks.

" 20--Poplarville, Miss., Claud Singleton, hanged; accused of murdering a white man. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

" 22--Lexington, Tenn., Berry Noyes, hanged; murder of Sheriff W. E. McBride.

" 22--Monroe, La., Clyde Williams, hanged; shooting C. L. Thomas, Missouri-Pacific station agent at Fawndale.

May 17--Valdosta, Ga., Will Head, Will Thompson, Hayes Turner, Mary Turner, Sydney Johnson, Eugene Rice, Chime Riley, Simon Schuman and three unidentified Negroes, hanged; alleged complicity in the murder of Hampton Smith.

" 20--Erwin, Tenn., Thomas Devert, shot and burned; alleged murder of a white girl.

" 22--Miami, Fla., Henry Jackson, hanged; throwing a white man underneath a train.

" 22--Red Level, Ala., John Womack, shot; alleged assault on a white woman.

" 23--Cordele, Ga., James Cobb, hanged; alleged murder of Mrs. Roy Simmons.

" 25--Barnesville, Ga., John Calhoun, shot; alleged murder of John A. Willis.

June 4--Huntsville, Tex., Sarah Cabiness and her five children; Peter, Cute, Tenola, Thomas and Bessie, shot; alleged threat to avenge killing of George Cabiness.

" 4--Beaumont, Tex., Kirby Goolsie, hanged; alleged attack on a white girl.

" 4--Sanderson, Tex., Edward Valentine (white); murder.

" 18--Mangham, La., George Clayton, hanged; murder of his employer, Ben Brooks. In a battle with the posse he wounded six men, probably fatally.

" 18--Earle, Ark., Allen Mitchell, hanged; wounding Mrs. W. M. Langston.

" 29--Madill, Okla., L. McGill, hanged; alleged attack upon a white woman.

July 27--Ben Hur, Tex., Gene Brown, hanged; alleged assault on a white woman.

August 7--Bastrop, La., "Bubber" Hall, hanged; alleged attack on a white woman.

" 11--Colquit, Ga., Ike Radney; reason unknown.

" 15--Natchez, Miss., Bill Dukes, shot to death. "He was guilty of a crime too revolting for publication."

" 15--Quincy, Fla., unidentified Negro; reason unknown.

" 15--Macon, Ga., John Gilham, hanged; alleged attack on two white women.

" 28--Hot Springs, Ark., Frederick Wagner (white); disloyal utterances.

September 3--San Pedro, Cal., Warren Czerich (white); murder.

" 18--Buff Lake, Tex., Abe O'Neal; shot and wounded white man.

" 24--Waycross, Ga., Sandy Reeves, hanged; alleged assault on a white girl.

November 5--Rolesville, N. C., George Taylor, hanged; rape.

" 11--Sheffield, Ala., William Bird, hanged; "for creating disturbance."

" 12--Sheffield, Ala., George Whiteside, hanged; charged with the murder of a policeman.

" 14--Fort Bend County, Tex., Charles Shipman; disagreement with landowner.

" 24--Culpepper, Va., Allie Thompson; charged with assaulting a white woman.

December 10--Green River, Wyo., Edward Woodson; charged with killing a railroad switchman.

" 16--Hickman, Ky., Charles Lewis, hanged; alleged to have beaten Deputy Sheriff Thomas.

" 18--Newport, Ark., Willis Robinson, hanged; murder of Patrolman Charles Williams.

" 21--Shubuta, Miss., Major and Andrew Clarke and Maggie and Alma House, hanged; accused of murder of Dr. E. L. Johnston.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

FOR THE

ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

Organized, February, 1909 Incorporated, May, 1911

1. To abolish legal injustice against Negroes.

2. To stamp out race discriminations.

3. To prevent lynchings, burnings and torturings of black people.

4. To assure to every citizen of color the common rights of American citizenship.

_President Wilson declared for woman suffrage as a war measure. Black men are not allowed to vote in many of the states of the Union, despite the Fifteenth Amendment._

5. To compel equal accommodations in railroad travel, irrespective of color.

6. To secure for colored children an equal opportunity to public school education through a fair apportionment of public education funds.

_Unless the colored child can be educated he is at a fearful disadvantage. An uneducated Negro population menaces national well-being. This education should be of hand and brain and can be adequately done_ for all Negro children, not the fortunate few, _only by public schools_.

7. To emancipate in fact, as well as in name, a race of nearly 12,000,000 American-born citizens.

The only means we can employ are education, organization, agitation, publicity--the force of an enlightened public opinion.

THE WORK IS SUPPORTED ENTIRELY BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS.

Send contributions to OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, _Treasurer_, 70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

FOR THE

ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

70 Fifth Avenue, New York City

Official Organ--THE CRISIS, published Monthly.

----

NATIONAL OFFICERS

_President_

MOORFIELD STOREY

_Vice-Presidents_

ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKÉ REV. JOHN HAYNES HOLMES BISHOP JOHN HURST CAPT. ARTHUR B. SPINGARN OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

_Chairman of the Board_, MARY WHITE OVINGTON JOHN R. SHILLADY, _Secretary_ OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, _Treasurer_ DR. W. E. B. DU BOIS, _Director of Publications and Research_ JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, _Field Secretary_ WALTER F. WHITE, _Assistant Secretary_

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

_Baltimore_ Bishop John Hurst

_Boston_ Joseph Prince Loud Moorfield Storey Butler R. Wilson

_Buffalo_ Mary B. Talbert

_Chicago_ Jane Addams Dr. C. E. Bentley

_Memphis_ R. R. Church

_New Haven_ George W. Crawford

_New York_ Rev. Hutchens C. Bishop Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois Rev. John Haynes Holmes Dr. V. Morton Jones Florence Kelley Paul Kennaday John E. Milholland Mary White Ovington Capt. Arthur B. Spingarn Major J. E. Spingarn Charles H. Studin Oswald Garrison Villard Lillian D. Wald William English Walling

_Philadelphia_ Dr. William A. Sinclair

_Springfield_ Rev. G. R. Waller

_St. Louis_ Hon. Charles Nagel

_Wilberforce_ Col. Chas. Young, U. S. A.

_Washington_ Prof. Geo. William Cook Archibald H. Grimké Charles Edward Russell

NOTES.

[1] The Association has in preparation a pamphlet, which will appear in April, 1919, entitled, "Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918," which can be secured from the secretary.

[2] "The bodies of the dead Negroes," testified an eye-witness, "were thrown into a morgue like so many dead hogs." Ibid., page 4.

[3] See page 18 for chronological list of name, place, date and alleged cause of lynchings for 1918.

[4] Nothing came of this request in the way of legal action.

[5] Four of the lynched victims were white men (one each in Arkansas, California, Illinois and Texas), 63 were Negroes and 5 of the latter women.

[6] In _The Crisis_ for February, 1919, page 181, this total is given as 12. The case of George Cabiness, whose mother and four brothers and sister were lynched, for alleged threats to avenge the killing of George, has been eliminated from the lynching record as the latter was alleged to have been killed resisting arrest.

[7] According to press accounts, except in a very few cases in which the victim was actually tried before a court and later taken from the jail and lynched.

[8] Published in _The Crisis_ for September, 1918 _The Work of a Mob_, and reprinted by the Association under the title, "_The Lynchings of May, 1918, in Brooks and Lowndes Counties Georgia_," September, 1918, 6 p.

[9] As we go to press, information has come that Judge B. F. Long has sentenced 15 men involved in the attempt to storm the Winston-Salem jail to prison terms ranging from fourteen months to six years. This is indeed a rarity and an occasion for rejoicing.

[10] _At the trial of the two alleged ringleaders of the mobs, which was held at Tuscumbia, Alabama, on February 3 and 4, 1919, the jury, assembled from the neighborhood, found a verdict of not guilty. The secretary of the Association was in attendance at the trial and has written a report of it which has been published as a special pamphlet Dispensing With Justice in Alabama_--a Report of the Trial of Frank Dillard, Alleged Lyncher, at Tuscumbia, Alabama, February 3 and 4, 1919, by John R. Shillady, Secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

[11] Of these investigations, the following have been published and may be obtained upon application to the National Secretary: Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia (see foot-note, page 11); Estill Springs, Tenn. (see _The Crisis_ for May, 1918, pages 16-20); Philadelphia Race Riots of July 26 to July 31, 1918, 8 p.

[12] Printed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as "The Negro Question" (with resolutions adopted by the Bar Association following the delivery of the address), 30 pages, ten cents per copy.

[13] Little, if any, progress was made in 1918, however, in the Law and Order League endeavor, according to our best information, and no rewards were claimed from the San Antonio Express.