| Part of Red Summer | |
 | |
| Date | Sunday, November 16, 1919 |
|---|---|
| Location | Moberly, Missouri |
| Coordinates | 39°25′06″N92°26′18″W / 39.41833°N 92.43833°W |
| Participants | White mob in Moberly, Missouri |
| Deaths | 1 |
On Sunday, November 16, 1919, four African-Americans were lynched in Moberly, Missouri. Three were able to escape but one was shot to death.
The East St. Louis massacres were a series of outbreaks of labor and race-related violence by people that caused the deaths of an estimated 40–250 African Americans in late May and early July 1917. Another 6,000 blacks were left homeless, and the rioting and vandalism cost approximately $400,000 ($9,137,000 in 2023) in property damage.
These race riots were one of several incidents of civil unrest that started again in the so-called American Red Summer of 1919. In most cases, white mobs attacked African American neighborhoods. In some cases, black community groups resisted the attacks, especially in Chicago and Washington DC. Most deaths occurred in rural areas during events like the Elaine Race Riot in Arkansas, where an estimated 100 to 240 black people and 5 white people were killed. Also in 1919 were the Chicago Race Riot and Washington D.C. race riot which killed 38 and 39 people respectively. Both had many more non-fatal injuries and extensive property damage reaching into the millions of dollars. [1]
In addition to this racial tension, the United States' media were alarmed by terrorist attacks from radical left extremist groups. On November 16, 1919 A. Mitchell Palmer released a report about the dangers of the far left and that “The negro race,” he warns, was “fertile ground” for the spread of radical propaganda. [2] He launched a campaign against radicalism known as the Palmer Raids in November 1919. Federal agents supported by local police rounded up large groups of suspected radicals, often based on membership in a political group rather than any action taken.
In November 1919 in Moberly, Missouri four African Americans beat and robbed white farmer Edward Thompson, The Dallas Express reported that Thompson had only light injuries. [3]
Four African Americans, identified [lower-alpha 1] as Allie Richards, George Adams, Sanfard Taylor, and James Anderson, were arrested on Thursday, November 14, 1919, and held in the nearby Macon, Missouri. [4] [5] It was reported in the press that the four were Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) members and it was claimed that they were from Chicago. [5] [6]
A mob of seventy five to eighty masked men, allegedly neighboring farmers, threatened to bomb the Macon jail unless the four were handed over. Macon County Sheriff Jesse Stamper folded and instructed his deputy, Bob Epperson to give the mob the keys. [4] [3] The accused African-Americans were taken back to the outskirts of Moberly and in front of a crowd of about a hundred men, an attempt was made to hang all four on the same branch. [4] Unable to handle the combined weight the branch broke. [4] The failed hanging attempt allowed the accused to flee but armed men were able to shoot one down and the three remaining were able to escape in the chaos. [4]
County authorities quickly rearrested two and a third was arrested late Sunday, November 16, 1919. [4]
Notes
References
Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civil rights activist and author James Weldon Johnson, who had been employed as a field secretary by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1916. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence.
Jim McMillan was lynched in Bibb County, Alabama on June 18, 1919.
The Washington race riot of 1919 was civil unrest in Washington, D.C. from July 19, 1919, to July 24, 1919. Starting July 19, white men, many in the armed forces, responded to the rumored arrest of a black man for rape of a white woman with four days of mob violence against black individuals and businesses. They rioted, randomly beat black people on the street, and pulled others off streetcars for attacks. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. The city closed saloons and theaters to discourage assemblies. Meanwhile, the four white-owned local papers, including the Washington Post, fanned the violence with incendiary headlines and calling in at least one instance for mobilization of a "clean-up" operation. After four days of police inaction, President Woodrow Wilson ordered 2,000 federal troops to regain control in the nation's capital. But a violent summer rainstorm had more of a dampening effect. When the violence ended, 15 people had died: at least 10 white people, including two police officers; and around 5 black people. Fifty people were seriously wounded and another 100 less severely wounded. It was one of the few times in 20th-century riots of whites against blacks that white fatalities outnumbered those of black people. The unrest was also one of the Red Summer riots in America.
Berry Washington was a 72-year-old black man who was lynched in Milan, Georgia, in 1919. He was in jail after killing a white man who was attacking two young girls. He was taken from jail and lynched by a mob.
The Morgan County, West Virginia race riot of 1919 was caused by big business using African-American strikebreakers against striking white workers in Morgan County, West Virginia.
The 1919 Coatesville call to arms was when the black community of Coatesville, Pennsylvania formed a large armed group to prevent a rumoured lynching. Only later when the armed group had surrounded the jail to prevent the lynching did they learn that there was no suspect and no white lynch mob.
The Newberry 1919 lynching attempt was the attempted lynching of Elisha Harper, Newberry, South Carolina on July 24, 1919. Harper was sent to jail for insulting a 14-year-old girl.
The Darby 1919 lynching attempt was the attempted lynching of Samuel Gorman in Darby, Pennsylvania on July 23, 1919. Samuel Gorman, a 17-year-old black boy was sent to jail for the alleged murder of William E. Taylor.
Newman O'Neal was the mayor of Hobson City, Alabama, until he faced death threats and was assaulted forcing him to flee.
The Wilmington, Delaware race riot of 1919 was a violent racial riot between white and black residents of Wilmington, Delaware on November 13, 1919.
The Laurens County, Georgia race riot was an attack on the black community by white mobs in August of 1919. In the Haynes' report, as summarized in the New York Times, it is called the Ocmulgee, Georgia race riot.
Miles Phifer and Robert Crosky were lynched in Montgomery, Alabama for allegedly assaulting a white woman.
This article focuses on African Americans who were lynched after World War I. After young African-American men volunteered to fight against the Central Powers, during World War I, many of them returned home but instead of being rewarded for their military service, they were subjected to discrimination and racism by the citizens and the government. Labor shortages in essential industries caused a massive migration of southern African- Americans to northern cities leading to a wide-spread emergency of segregation in the north and the regeneration of the Ku Klux Klan. For many African-American veterans, as well as the majority of the African-Americans in the United States, the times which followed the war were fraught with challenges similar to those they faced overseas. Discrimination and segregation were at the forefront of everyday life, but most prevalent in schools, public revenues, and housing. Although members of different races who had fought in World War I believed that military service was a price which was worth paying in exchange for equal citizenship, this was not the case for African Americans. The decades which followed World War I included blatant acts of racism and nationally recognized events which conveyed American society's portrayal of African-Americans as 2nd class citizens. Although the United States had just won The Great War in 1918, the national fight for equal rights was just beginning.
Paul Jones was lynched on November 2, 1919, after being accused of attacking a fifty-year-old white woman in Macon, Georgia.
African-American man, Jordan Jameson was lynched on November 11, 1919, in the town square of Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas. A large white mob seized Jameson after he allegedly shot the local sheriff. They tied him to a stake and burned him alive.
Chilton Jennings was lynched on July 24, 1919, after being accused of attacking a white woman, Mrs. Virgie Haggard in Gilmer, Texas.
The lynching of Edward"Red" Roach was the extrajudicial killing of a 25-year-old Black man by a mob of White men in Roxboro, North Carolina for allegedly assaulting the 13-year-old daughter of popular White tobacco farmer Edward Chambers. Later, Nello Teer, Roach's employer, wrote to The Herald-Sun in Durham decrying the lynching as a “ghastly mistake” because Roach was at work when the alleged attack on Chambers occurred. No one was ever brought to justice for the lynching. A memorial service was held in Durham in remembrance of "Ed" Roach in 2019.
Father and son Alonzo and James D. Green were innocent African-Americans lynched near Round Oak and Wayside, Jones County, Georgia in retaliation for the murder of popular white farmer Silas Hardin Turner on July 4, 1915. A third man, William Bostick was also lynched on this day. None of those killed received a trial.
An 18-year-old African American named William Turner was lynched on November 18, 1921, in Helena, Arkansas, for an alleged assault on a 15-year-old white girl. Two years earlier hundreds of African-Americans were killed during the Elaine Race Riot in Hoop Spur, a nearby community also in Phillips County, Arkansas.