Keith Morris Washington

NINETY SIX, S.C.,
Oct. 9 -- A coroner’s jury ordered four men held late today on a charge of murdering Bennie Thompson, youthful Negro who was taken from jail here last night and beaten to death.
The action was taken by the jury after Burley Leppard had read a statement admitting that he and three white men had taken the youth from his cell and whipped him with “automobile top tubes.” The men implicated by Leppard were J.F. Morris, “Lesty” Mayes and “Toody” Webb. Leppard, a textile worker, and Mayes were in jail tonight, but officers were still searching for the other two.
“We and the others had some trouble with the Negro at a cafe last night and he drew a pistol on us.” Leppard’s statement said. “The Negro was arrested and put in jail. Later the four of us went to the jail and asked the jailer to turn the Negro over to us. He refused, telling us we would have to see the chief.
“Chief of Police Rush came in a few minutes later, and we made the same request of him. He told us to wait until dark and come back and we would find the jail unlocked.
“We went back to the jail a short time later and we found the door open and the lock hanging in the cell door, pushed together as if it had been locked.
“We took the Negro out and drove him down the
road in my car. All of us beat him with automobile top tubes and left him beside the road still alive.”
Leppard said that was at 7:30 o’clock last night.
Just after 8 o’clock this morning, the Negro’s body, bearing many welts, was found in plain view of the highway by a small Negro boy.
Solicitor H.S. Blackwell, who attended the inquest, said he would ask that Chief of Police Rush be indicted as an accessory to the killing.
Chief Rush made a statement tonight denying the textile workers’ charge that he had aided them in taking the Negro from his cell: “I have been an officer a long time and I will never be guilty of such a dirty trick as that,” he said.

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn.,
Oct. 28 -- Cooksey Dallas, Negro was lynched by a mob here last night. Some local citizens say that he made improper advances to a white woman. Others say he refused to sell moonshine whiskey to white soldiers.

COLUMBIA, Tenn.,
Dec. 15 -- Cordie Cheek, 20, a Negro, was found hanging from the limb of a cedar tree near here tonight. He was lynched following refusal of a Grand Jury to indict him for molesting a white girl.

“Dear Mrs. S.
The following account of the lynching of Cordie Cheek as related to me as a kid by my Grandmother Mrs.L.B.
My Grandmother lived some thirty years ago at Culleoka Tenn. where she lived all of her life. When I was a kid she would tell me how Cordie Cheek was lynched.
It began when he spoke to a young white girl in that same town, that was located about 13 miles south of Columbia, Tenn. It seems she told her father Cordie tried to rape her, and he became angry and gathered some of his friends and began to look for Cordie who had hitched a ride on a train and come to Nashville.
The group went to the Sheriff at Columbia, and the Sheriff and part of the this group found where he was staying in north Nashville. They (went) up there and picked him up with the help of the local police. Instead of putting him in jail, they carried him back to Culleoka, so the girl involved could see him lynched.
One market owner at Culleoka near the railroad tracks by the name of Doc Mash could not see very well, but he said “I can not see well enough to hang that nigger, but I will tote the rope, (on the day Doc Marsh died his last words was, “someone get this nigger off me”).”
A crowd gathered near the railroad tracks at Culleoka and the lynching began. First they beat Cordie while this girl look on, but when they punched his eyes out she begged them to stop because she had lied. But the lynch mob was to carried away to head anyone.
They cut off his private parts and put them in his mouth, then put a rope around his neck and tied it to a car and dragged him about 7 miles north on Highway 50 to a fork in the road where Highway 50 and 50A come together. There they hung his lifeless body on a tree which far as I know, still stands today.
R. J. ”

WOODSTOCK, Ala.,
Aug. 14 -- The bodies of two Negroes, Dan Pippen, 18 years old and A.T. Harding, 16 years old were found underneath a tree near Woodstock in Bibb County. The two Negroes were handcuffed together, and riddled with bullets. A third Negro, Elmore Clarke, 28 years old, had been wounded but somehow escaped, was found hiding in the woods.
On Monday, June 12, Vaudine Maddox, a white girl, disappeared from her home near Tuscaloosa.
She was last seen sitting on a log in a ravine, talking with some one she regarded as a friend - “that is, a white person.” Her body was found two days latter.
Dan Pippen, was arrested for the murder on the testimony of a white man, who owed him money. Two of Pippen’s friends, A.T. Harden and Elmore Clarke , members of the same Negro singing club, were arrested along with him.
Another Negro, Willie Jimison, testified to the grand jury that Pippen had been working on the Jimison farm on Monday. Jimison was then sent to jail “for investigation.” Pippen’s father, who testified to the grand jury, that he had been working all that day beside his son, had already been arrested for interfering with the investigation.
The trial began on August 1, in the Tuscaloosa courthouse, amidst sheriff’s deputies and the state National Guard confronting, with fixed bayonets and tear gas, a mob estimated at over one thousand persons.
According to his own account, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff R.L. Shamblin, heard rumors of an attack on the jail house planned for Aug. 14. On the night of Aug. 13, he set out towards Birmingham with two deputies and the three prisoners. Soon after crossing into Jefferson County, two cars loaded with armed, and masked men stopped the sheriff and demanded the prisoners. The sheriff turned the prisoners over.
The next morning the bodies were found near Woodstock.
The sheriff, back in Tuscaloosa, blamed the lynching on the International Labor Defense, which he claimed had aroused the white population.
Judge Foster said he had not ordered moving the prisoners to Birmingham.
Governor R.M. Miller ordered an investigation. It was revealed, all evidence had been lost, and no indictments were returned.

PRINCESS ANNE, Md., Oct. 18 -- In the wildest lynching orgy the state has ever witnessed, a frenzied mob of 3,000 men, women and children, sneering at guns and tear gas, overpowered 50 state troopers, tore from a prison cell a Negro accused of attacking an aged white woman, and lynched him in front of the home of a judge who had tried to placate the mob.
Then the mob cut down the body, dragged it through the main thoroughfare for more than half a mile and tossed it on a burning pyre.
Fifty State policemen were beaten to the ground and the others were swept aside by the fury of the townsmen and farmers, who used a heavy wooden battering ram to smash three doors and reach the cell of the terrified prisoner, George Armwood, 24 years old.
Armwood was dragged by the neck through the streets, to the home of Judge Robert F. Duer, who, earlier in the day had called the Somerset County grand jury in special session next Monday to hear testimony against the Negro.
While the prisoner pleaded desperately for his life and members of the mob shouted, “lynch him!” a rope was placed about his neck. The other end was swung over the limb of a tree directly in front of the judge’s dwelling.
To accompanying shouts of “let him swing,” the struggling Negro was hoisted into the air. Five minutes later he was cut
down, dead.
Under the oak tree, despite the presence of women and children, all the victim’s clothes were torn from his body and he hung there for several minutes nude.
Then members of the mob, shouting, seized the loose end of the rope and dragged the body half a mile on Main Street to a blazing pile in the center of the thoroughfare. The dead man was lifted high by half a dozen men and flung to the flames.
Hundreds of persons, packed so thickly about the fire that police could not fight their way through, watched the body burn.

Manage

TYLERTOWN, Miss.
Nov. 23 -- Harry Jacobs, negro, while being tried for his life for an assault on a white woman here today, was taken from the courtroom and lynched by a mob. Members of the mob, who had been barred from the courtroom during the progress of the trial, gained access to the courtroom by breaking down the doors.
After forcing an entrance to the courtroom despite efforts of court officials and others to prevent violence, the negro was seized, a rope placed about his neck and dragged two blocks through the main street of the town after which the rope was tied to the axle of an automobile, which dragged him to Magee’s creek bridge, where the lifeless body was swung to the limb of a tree riddled with bullets.
Cleveland Strange, of Jayess, Miss., was accidentally shot through the abdomen during the affray and tonight is said to be in a critical condition. Strange is said to have been hitting the Negro over the head with a pistol, holding it by the barrel, when the pistol was discharged, the load taking effect in the stomach. He was taken to a hospital at McComb, Miss.
Harry Jacobs, the Negro lynched today, was a brother of Ben Jacobs, who was lynched by a mob about two weeks ago for an attack on the husband of the woman attacked by Harry Jacobs on October 30. Since his arrest he had been in jail at the Magnolia, Brookhaven and Jackson to prevent mob violence.
A special term of court was convened here this morning to try the case with Judge D.M. Miller presiding. A grand jury had been organized and the work of selecting a petit jury was being started when the mob stopped the proceedings by pounding on the doors for admission, with shouts of “Let us have him; we must have him.”
Appeals were made by Judge Miller, other court officials and the husband of the woman assaulted to permit the court to proceed in an orderly manner.
With shouts of “Come on, let’s get him,” the mob broke down the doors to the courthouse, rushed up the stairs to the witness room, where Jacobs was being held, and dragged him to the street.
After the body had been hanged to the tree it was left there for several hours and great crowds of the curious visited the scene throughout the day. Everything is quiet in town tonight, the mob having dispersed soon after the lynching.

BOLTON, Miss.,
July 16 -- Accused of writing an “indecent and insulting” letter to a young Hinds County white girl, James Sanders, 25-year-old Negro, was riddled with bullets late today by a mob of armed citizens.

LARAMIE, Wyo.
October 8 -- Three Laramie residents were arrested Thursday in connection with the attempted murder of a 22-year-old man.
The three were arrested in connection with an attack on Laramie resident Matthew Shepard, who was listed in critical condition at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital, according to Albany County Sheriff's officers.
Arrested were Russell Arthur Henderson, 21; Chastity Vera Pasley, 20; and Kristen Leann Price, 18. Henderson was being held on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder. Pasley and Price were suspected of being accessories after the fact to attempted first-degree murder. The victim was found about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, tied to a fence about one mile northeast of Laramie. He was severely beaten and unconscious, authorities said.
Shepard was taken to Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, then transported to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins.
Laramie police officers said they received a report of an aggravated assault in the vicinity of 7th and Harney, six blocks from the University of Wyoming campus, about 1 a.m. Wednesday. The investigation of that incident provided information that led to the arrests, officers said.
Authorities said additional arrests are anticipated.

BARNSTABLE, Mass.,
May 19 -- Cape Cod authorities made a gruesome discovery over the weekend in Barnstable while putting out a brush fire when they found a burned body lashed to a tree amid the flames.
The body was an adult but officials weren’t sure of the gender. An autopsy was being done late yesterday to identify the person and cause of death. The body was found Saturday night tied to
a tree, said State Trooper Paul Thomas.
“The case is being investigated as a homicide,” said Brian Glenny, First Assistant District Attorney for the Cape and Islands.
The fire was discovered about 7 p.m. after officials at nearby Barnstable Municipal Airport saw smoke. The charred remains were found in a secluded wooded area along a dirt road about a third of a mile off Mary Dunn Road. The state-owned property is part of the Hyannis Ponds Wildlife Management area, and is a popular teenage drinking spot.
“The big draw is that the ponds are full of endangered plants. There’s really no police presence here,” said a biologist who did not want to be identified.
Arson posters promising a hefty reward for information on the fire were tacked to several trees. The area, cordoned off by crime tape, is located near an industrial park.

CLINTON, S.C.,
July 5 -- A Negro truck driver who had come to blows with a white truck driver was found dead today.
Norris Bendy, Laurens County Negro, had argued yesterday with Marvin Tollis, white, after each had driven a truckload of Fourth of July picnickers to Lake Murray. When the men came to blows, the Negro was arrested.
Sometime this morning the Negro was spirited away from the Clinton Jail. Later, his body, showing signs of shooting, beating and strangulation, was found seven miles from here by Deputy Sheriff Thad Moore. It was hanging from a tree on the lawn of the Old Sardis Church.

HATTIESBURG, Miss.,
Apr. 24 -- On the night of March 25th, R.J. Tyrone, prosperous Negro farmer of Lawrence County, was found shot to pieces in the woods beside his house. He had been visited earlier by a mob of white men in connection with financial difficulties he was having with William Newton, a neighboring white farmer. Today a coroner’s jury handed down a verdict that Tyrone had died as a result of “Suicide.”

KOKOMO, Miss.,
Jun. 28 -- A black teenager who was found hanging from a tree in his front yard in what investigators ruled a suicide may instead have been lynched for dating two white girls, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Tuesday.
Jackson asked Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and the U.S. Justice Department to launch an investigation into the death of 17-year-old Raynard Johnson.
Standing under the pecan tree where Raynard's body was found by his father June 15, the civil rights leader said that the death "had the smell of Emmett Till all around it. Till was a black teenager killed in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman.
"The two young white girls and Johnson had been dating each other; that did not sit well with some people," Jackson said.
The Marion County coroner's office concluded that the honor student took his own life.
Deborah Madden, an FBI spokeswoman in Jackson, said the bureau is investigating and will forward its findings
to the Justice Department. District Atty. Claiborne McDonald said his office is still investigating.
Kokomo is a racially mixed rural community.
Family members have insisted there was foul play, claiming the belt used in the hanging did not belong to Raynard.
Maria Johnson, his mother, said she contacted Jackson because she felt the local investigation was getting nowhere.
"I know that my son did not do this to himself," Johnson said.

YAZOO CITY, Miss.
Aug. 6 -- Ten thousand Negroes including men, women and children, are said to have left the vicinity of Yazoo City since Sunday following the burning at the stake of Wille Minnifield in a swamp near here.
The emigrants left in all sorts of conveyances, railroads, automobiles, ox carts, and some on foot. Few of them remained long enough to dispose of their possessions, some even
leaving crops on the ground.
Minnifield, who was found fishing in the swamp, was accused of attacking a white woman with an ax at a point 26 miles distant. There was no indication to prove that he was the criminal. When the posse discovered him, he was in company with another man. Both were seized and charged with the crime. Minnifield’s companion escaped.
Angered because he had slipped from their clutches, the mob prepared to burn Minnifield. He was dragged to a cleared space in the swamp, and a stake was driven into the ground, to which he was tied. Brushwood was then piled around until only his head was visible. A match was set to the brush, and as the flames crackled around the man, the woods resounded with the shouts of the mob.
As the flames died down, leaving the victim’s charred skeleton lying upon the embers the mob took up the chase for the man who had escaped.