the cleveland gazette of january 16, 1892, publishes a case in point. mrs. j.s. underwood, the wife of a minister of elyria, ohio, accused an afro-american of rape. she told her husband that during his absence in 1888, stumping the state for the prohibition party, the man came to the kitchen door, forced his way in the house and insulted her. she tried to drive him out with a heavy poker, but he overpowered and chloroformed her, and when she revived her clothing was torn and she was in a horrible condition. she did not know the man but could identify him. she pointed out william offett, a married man, who was arrested and, being in ohio, was granted a trial.
the prisoner vehemently denied the charge of rape, but confessed he went to mrs. underwood's residence at her invitation and was criminally intimate with her at her request. this availed him nothing against the sworn testimony of a ministers wife, a lady of the highest respectability. he was found guilty, and entered the penitentiary, december 14, 1888, for fifteen years. some time afterwards the woman's remorse led her to confess to her husband that the man was innocent.
these are her words:
i met offett at the post office. it was raining. he was polite to me, and as i had several bundles in my arms he offered to carry them home for me, which he did. he had a strange fascination for me, and i invited him to call on me. he called, bringing chestnuts and candy for the children. by this means we got them to leave us alone in the room. then i sat on his lap. he made a proposal to me and i readily consented. why i did so, i do not know, but that i did is true. he visited me several times after that and each time i was indiscreet. i did not care after the first time. in fact i could not have resisted, and had no desire to resist.
when asked by her husband why she told him she had been outraged, she said: "i had several reasons for telling you. one was the neighbors saw the fellows here, another was, i was afraid i had contracted a loathsome disease, and still another was that i feared i might give birth to a negro baby. i hoped to save my reputation by telling you a deliberate lie." her husband horrified by the confession had offett, who had already served four years, released and secured a divorce.
there are thousands of such cases throughout the south, with the difference that the southern white men in insatiate fury wreak their vengeance without intervention of law upon the afro-americans who consort with their women. a few instances to substantiate the assertion that some white women love the company of the afro-american will not be out of place. most of these cases were reported by the daily papers of the south.
in the winter of 1885-86 the wife of a practicing physician in memphis, in good social standing whose name has escaped me, left home, husband and children, and ran away with her black coachman. she was with him a month before her husband found and brought her home. the coachman could not be found. the doctor moved his family away from memphis, and is living in another city under an assumed name.
in the same city last year a white girl in the dusk of evening screamed at the approach of some parties that a negro had assaulted her on the street. he was captured, tried by a white judge and jury, that acquitted him of the charge. it is needless to add if there had been a scrap of evidence on which to convict him of so grave a charge he would have been convicted.
sarah clark of memphis loved a black man and lived openly with him. when she was indicted last spring for miscegenation, she swore in court that she was not a white woman. this she did to escape the penitentiary and continued her illicit relation undisturbed. that she is of the lower class of whites, does not disturb the fact that she is a white woman. "the leading citizens" of memphis are defending the "honor" of all white women, demi-monde included.
since the manager of the free speech has been run away from memphis by the guardians of the honor of southern white women, a young girl living on poplar st., who was discovered in intimate relations with a handsome mulatto young colored man, will morgan by name, stole her father's money to send the young fellow away from that father's wrath. she has since joined him in chicago.
the memphis ledger for june 8 has the following:
if lillie bailey, a rather pretty white girl seventeen years of age, who is now at the city hospital, would be somewhat less reserved about her disgrace there would be some very nauseating details in the story of her life. she is the mother of a little coon. the truth might reveal fearful depravity or it might reveal the evidence of a rank outrage. she will not divulge the name of the man who has left such black evidence of her disgrace, and, in fact, says it is a matter in which there can be no interest to the outside world. she came to memphis nearly three months ago and was taken in at the woman's refuge in the southern part of the city. she remained there until a few weeks ago, when the child was born. the ladies in charge of the refuge were horified. the girl was at once sent to the city hospital, where she has been since may 30. she is a country girl. she came to memphis from her fathers farm, a short distance from hernando, miss. just when she left there she would not say. in fact she says she came to memphis from arkansas, and says her home is in that state. she is rather good looking, has blue eyes, a low forehead and dark red hair. the ladies at the woman's refuge do not know anything about the girl further than what they learned when she was an inmate of the institution; and she would not tell much. when the child was born an attempt was made to get the girl to reveal the name of the negro who had disgraced her, she obstinately refused and it was impossible to elicit any information from her on the subject.
note the wording. "the truth might reveal fearful depravity or rank outrage." if it had been a white child or lillie bailey had told a pitiful story of negro outrage, it would have been a case of woman's weakness or assault and she could have remained at the woman's refuge. but a negro child and to withhold its father's name and thus prevent the killing of another negro "rapist." a case of "fearful depravity."
the very week the "leading citizens" of memphis were making a spectacle of themselves in defense of all white women of every kind, an afro-american, m. stricklin, was found in a white woman's room in that city. although she made no outcry of rape, he was jailed and would have been lynched, but the woman stated she bought curtains of him (he was a furniture dealer) and his business in her room that night was to put them up. a white woman's word was taken as absolutely in this case as when the cry of rape is made, and he was freed.
what is true of memphis is true of the entire south. the daily papers last year reported a farmer's wife in alabama had given birth to a negro child. when the negro farm hand who was plowing in the field heard it he took the mule from the plow and fled. the dispatches also told of a woman in south carolina who gave birth to a negro child and charged three men with being its father, every one of whom has since disappeared. in tuscumbia, ala., the colored boy who was lynched there last year for assaulting a white girl told her before his accusers that he had met her there in the woods often before.
frank weems of chattanooga who was not lynched in may only because the prominent citizens became his body guard until the doors of the penitentiary closed on him, had letters in his pocket from the white woman in the case, making the appointment with him. edward coy who was burned alive in texarkana, january 1, 1892, died protesting his innocence. investigation since as given by the bystander in the chicago inter ocean, october 1, proves:
1. the woman who was paraded as a victim of violence was of bad character; her husband was a drunkard and a gambler.
2. she was publicly reported and generally known to have been criminally intimate with coy for more than a year previous.
3. she was compelled by threats, if not by violence, to make the charge against the victim.
4. when she came to apply the match coy asked her if she would burn him after they had "been sweethearting" so long.
5. a large majority of the "superior" white men prominent in the affair are the reputed fathers of mulatto children.
these are not pleasant facts, but they are illustrative of the vital phase of the so-called race question, which should properly be designated an earnest inquiry as to the best methods by which religion, science, law and political power may be employed to excuse injustice, barbarity and crime done to a people because of race and color. there can be no possible belief that these people were inspired by any consuming zeal to vindicate god's law against miscegnationists of the most practical sort. the woman was a willing partner in the victim's guilt, and being of the "superior" race must naturally have been more guilty.
in natchez, miss., mrs. marshall, one of the creme de la creme of the city, created a tremendous sensation several years ago. she has a black coachman who was married, and had been in her employ several years. during this time she gave birth to a child whose color was remarked, but traced to some brunette ancestor, and one of the fashionable dames of the city was its godmother. mrs. marshall's social position was unquestioned, and wealth showered every dainty on this child which was idolized with its brothers and sisters by its white papa. in course of time another child appeared on the scene, but it was unmistakably dark. all were alarmed, and "rush of blood, strangulation" were the conjectures, but the doctor, when asked the cause, grimly told them it was a negro child. there was a family conclave, the coachman heard of it and leaving his own family went west, and has never returned. as soon as mrs. marshall was able to travel she was sent away in deep disgrace. her husband died within the year of a broken heart.
ebenzer fowler, the wealthiest colored man in issaquena county, miss., was shot down on the street in mayersville, january 30, 1885, just before dark by an armed body of white men who filled his body with bullets. they charged him with writing a note to a white woman of the place, which they intercepted and which proved there was an intimacy existing between them.
hundreds of such cases might be cited, but enough have been given to prove the assertion that there are white women in the south who love the afro-american's company even as there are white men notorious for their preference for afro-american women.
there is hardly a town in the south which has not an instance of the kind which is well known, and hence the assertion is reiterated that "nobody in the south believes the old thread bare lie that negro men rape white women." hence there is a growing demand among afro-americans that the guilt or innocence of parties accused of rape be fully established. they know the men of the section of the country who refuse this are not so desirous of punishing rapists as they pretend. the utterances of the leading white men show that with them it is not the crime but the class. bishop fitzgerald has become apologist for lynchers of the rapists of white women only. governor tillman, of south carolina, in the month of june, standing under the tree in barnwell, s.c., on which eight afro-americans were hung last year, declared that he would lead a mob to lynch a negro who raped a white woman. so say the pulpits, officials and newspapers of the south. but when the victim is a colored woman it is different.
last winter in baltimore, md., three white ruffians assaulted a miss camphor, a young afro-american girl, while out walking with a young man of her own race. they held her escort and outraged the girl. it was a deed dastardly enough to arouse southern blood, which gives its horror of rape as excuse for lawlessness, but she was an afro-american. the case went to the courts, an afro-american lawyer defended the men and they were acquitted.
in nashville, tenn., there is a white man, pat hanifan, who outraged a little afro-american girl, and, from the physical injuries received, she has been ruined for life. he was jailed for six months, discharged, and is now a detective in that city. in the same city, last may, a white man outraged an afro-american girl in a drug store. he was arrested, and released on bail at the trial. it was rumored that five hundred afro-americans had organized to lynch him. two hundred and fifty white citizens armed themselves with winchesters and guarded him. a cannon was placed in front of his home, and the buchanan rifles (state militia) ordered to the scene for his protection. the afro-american mob did not materialize. only two weeks before eph. grizzard, who had only been charged with rape upon a white woman, had been taken from the jail, with governor buchanan and the police and militia standing by, dragged through the streets in broad daylight, knives plunged into him at every step, and with every fiendish cruelty a frenzied mob could devise, he was at last swung out on the bridge with hands cut to pieces as he tried to climb up the stanchions. a naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the nineteenth-century civilization of the athens of the south! no cannon or military was called out in his defense. he dared to visit a white woman.
at the very moment these civilized whites were announcing their determination "to protect their wives and daughters," by murdering grizzard, a white man was in the same jail for raping eight-year-old maggie reese, an afro-american girl. he was not harmed. the "honor" of grown women who were glad enough to be supported by the grizzard boys and ed coy, as long as the liaison was not known, needed protection; they were white. the outrage upon helpless childhood needed no avenging in this case; she was black.
a white man in guthrie, oklahoma territory, two months ago inflicted such injuries upon another afro-american child that she died. he was not punished, but an attempt was made in the same town in the month of june to lynch an afro-american who visited a white woman.
in memphis, tenn., in the month of june, ellerton l. dorr, who is the husband of russell hancock's widow, was arrested for attempted rape on mattie cole, a neighbors cook; he was only prevented from accomplishing his purpose, by the appearance of mattie's employer. dorr's friends say he was drunk and not responsible for his actions. the grand jury refused to indict him and he was discharged.
