Hidden in Plain Sight: A History of the Newberry Mass Lynching of 1916 by Janis Owens

Author:Janis Owens [Owens, Janis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies, General
ISBN: 9781646633685
Google: bSsTzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2020-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

THE CAPTURE OF BOISY LONG

The capture of Boisy Long on Sunday evening, August 20, 1916, was presented in the press as a cut-and-dried moment of extreme good luck on behalf of the Alachua County sheriff’s department. According to the Ocala Evening Star, Long randomly approached an “old colored preacher” named Squire Long at his farm seven miles northeast of Newberry in the Bennington Section, and asked for food.169 The Tampa Tribute parsed out a slightly longer narrative, that Boisy Long asked for food the first night and was given it by Squire Long, who did not recognize him. 170

According to the Tribune’s version, Boisy Long was “much jaded because of lack of food,” and returned the next evening to ask for more help. This time, Squire Long recognized him as a fugitive and with the help of his son, Jackson, immediately turned Boisy Long over to Sheriff Ramsey, at the curiously recurring hour of two in the morning, to the relief and approbation of all. “The action of the old negro, Squire Long, is [sic] bringing the murderer to the Gainesville jail was very unusual, very sensible, and can’t be too highly commended.”171

The accounts made for a tidy ending and a compelling bit of storytelling. Squire Long’s portrayal as a “wise old colored preacher” reduced his part in Boisy Long’s arrest to recognizable elements for the digestion of white readers—the story of the negro desperado being apprehended, against all expectation, by a wise old member of his own tribe. According to the rules of blood-law, such a transaction would return harmony to the region—a member of the offending tribe offering up the life of the offender.

That was possibly the underlying storyline that law enforcement hoped to convey, post-lynching, though many of the details were deliberate lies. In truth, Squire Long was not an elderly old preacher, but younger by three years than Deputy Wynne. Boisy Long’s appearance at his door was not random, and it is doubtful they were strangers, as their families had many connections to Black Jonesville.

Squire Long’s mother, Flora Long, owned land in Jonesville in 1900 near Dudley, the closest store, and the Dennis/Long/McHenry families, who were only separated by a few houses. The Crisis reported that Squire Long was, in fact, Boisy Long’s uncle, a relationship that was denied by the family as a matter of survival.172 The connection better explains why Boisy Long would have sought him out for assistance, as Squire Long was a prominent preacher, healer and farmer. In essence, he was a figure well-known in every generation of Southern life, the aspiring uncle born in modest circumstances who’d done well for himself.

Boisy Long, who was wounded in his arm, would have had to have traveled the seven miles to his uncle’s farm by foot, where family members say he hid in the fields, as the Tampa paper reported. For Squire Long to fail to recognize him seems unlikely, as members of the posse had visited Squire Long and, according to The Crisis, had terrorized him.

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