Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors by Debby Irving

Author:Debby Irving
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2018-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

William Brown was accused of assaulting Agnes Lobeck, a white woman, in Nebraska. On September 28, 1919, he was brutally and savagely lynched in Omaha.

In 1903, a Georgia mob killed an unidentified black man, believing him to be Ed Clauss—suspected of raping a white woman. The victim was “tied to a tree and his body riddled with bullets, despite his frantic protests of innocence.”29 He was, in fact, not Ed Clauss. In 1912, Walter Johnson, a black man, was lynched in West Virginia. He was accused of the rape of Nita White, a fourteen-year-old white girl. Shortly thereafter, a local judge, prosecuting attorney, and sheriff concluded that Johnson had not committed the crime. According to newspaper reports, “The negro fell far short in dress and physical appearance of the man described by the girl.”30 In 1915, in Jackson, Mississippi, Ed Johnson, a black man, was taken by a mob—he had been in the custody of a constable on charges of stealing a cow. The mob lynched Johnson. Two days later the cow returned, having merely strayed.31

In 1933, an eleven-year-old white girl in Maury County, Tennessee, claimed that Cordie Cheek, a black teenager, had raped her. He had not. Cheek had refused to call a white teenager “Mister.” That resulted in a fight. The white boy later paid the girl one dollar to say that Cheek had raped her. A white mob kidnapped him from his home and lynched him.32

On October 8, 1933, Anna Mae LaRose, a white woman, was found dead in a sugarcane field in Labadieville, Louisiana. At her funeral, LaRose’s stepfather accused Fred Moore, a sixteen-year-old black youth, of raping and killing LaRose. Moore was arrested and placed in the Assumption Parish Jail in Napoleonville. This did not satisfy the local white citizens. On October 11, a lynch mob kidnapped Moore from his jail cell using keys from one of the deputies. They beat the boy until he confessed to the murder. Moore also named a “Norman Jackson” as an accomplice. The mob castrated Moore. His lifeless body was hung from the Labadieville Bridge. A note was affixed to his body that said, “Niggers, let this be an example. Do not touch for 24 hours.” His body was displayed until the following day. The Chicago Defender reported that photographs of the lynching were sold for twenty cents to “lift a mortgage” on a Labadieville church.33 Norman Thibodaux, another black youth, was tortured and nearly lynched. Later, LaRose’s stepfather confessed that he had murdered his niece.34

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