Lynching of Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker

Last updated

Lavinia Baker and her five surviving children. A mob of whites had set fire to their house at night, and fatally shot and killed her husband Frazier Baker and baby girl Julia on February 22, 1898. Left to right: Sarah; Lincoln, Lavinia; Wille; Cora, Rosa Mrs. Frazer Baker and children. Family of the murdered postmaster at Lake City, So. Carolina, LCCN2011648501.jpg
Lavinia Baker and her five surviving children. A mob of whites had set fire to their house at night, and fatally shot and killed her husband Frazier Baker and baby girl Julia on February 22, 1898. Left to right: Sarah; Lincoln, Lavinia; Wille; Cora, Rosa

Frazier B. Baker was an African-American teacher who was appointed as postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina in 1897 under the William McKinley administration. He and his infant daughter Julia Baker died at his house after being fatally shot during a white mob attack on February 22, 1898. The mob set the house on fire to force the family out. His wife and two of his other five children were wounded, but escaped the burning house and mob, and survived.

Contents

Frazier Baker had been appointed postmaster of Lake City in 1897, but local whites objected and had undertaken a campaign to force his removal. When these efforts failed to dislodge Baker, a mob attacked him and his family at night at their house, which also served as the post office.

Background

After the 1896 Presidential election, the Republican William McKinley administration appointed hundreds of Black people to postmasterships across the Southern United States during his remaining tenure as part of patronage jobs to build local networks. [1] These recess appointments were resisted by local whites, who resented any Black Republican officeholders, and especially appointments made by an outgoing administration. They claimed to fear that the increased political power of Black postmasters would embolden them to proposition white women. [1]

Frazier B. Baker, a married 40-year-old schoolteacher and the father of six children, was appointed postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina, in 1897. He immediately encountered fierce opposition from local white conservative Democrats. [2] While the surrounding Willamsburg County was 63% Black, Lake City was overwhelmingly white, with fewer than a dozen black residents,. [3] Whites initiated a boycott of the Lake City post office and circulated petitions calling for Baker's dismissal. [2]

One complaint was that Baker, a member of the Colored Farmers Alliance, had cut mail delivery from three times a day to one after threats against his life were made. [3] A postal inspector arrived to investigate the complaints and recommended that the post office be closed; in response, a white mob burned it down with the expectation that no one would rent space for use as a post office while Baker remained postmaster. [3] The government obtained space on the outskirts of town, however, a lessening of racial tension led Baker to send for his family in February 1898. [3]

Threats against Baker's life were made as whites remained hostile to his presence. Baker communicated these threats to his superiors in Washington.

Lynching

Victims [3] [4]
NameAgeSexInjuries
Frazier Baker42MKilled by gunfire
Lavinia Baker37 [5] FGunshot to arm
Rosa Baker18FArm broken by gunshot
Cora Baker14FShot in right hand
Lincoln Baker11MShot in abdomen/Broken arm
Sarah Baker7FUnharmed
Millie Baker5FUnharmed
Julia Baker2FKilled by gunfire

At 1:00 AM on February 21, 1898, the Baker family awoke to find their house (which also served as the post office) on fire. [3] Frazier Baker attempted to put out the fire without success and sent his son, Lincoln, to find help. As soon as Lincoln opened the door, he was met with gunfire, and Baker pulled him back into the house. Baker cursed the mob and began to pray. As the fire grew, the heat intensified, and Baker turned to his wife, Lavinia, saying that they "might as well die running as standing still," and started for the door. Before he could open the door, a bullet struck and killed his two-year-old daughter, Julia, who Lavinia held. Realizing that his youngest daughter had been killed, Baker threw open the door and was cut down in a hail of gunfire.

Wounded by the same bullet that had killed her daughter, Lavinia rallied her family to escape the burning house, and they ran across the road to hide under shrubbery in an adjacent field. [6] After waiting for the flames and gunfire to subside, Lavinia made her way to a neighbor's home, where she found one daughter waiting. They were later joined by the oldest, Rosa. Rosa had been shot through the right arm and fled the house as an unidentified armed white male pursued her. [7] Only Sarah (age 7) and Millie (age 5) escaped unscathed. The survivors remained in Lake City for three days but received no medical treatment. [3]

Aftermath

"The Mob at the Lake City Post Office--An Artist's Portrayal," reproduced from the Boston Post, 10 August 1899. The Mob at the Lake City Post Office.gif
"The Mob at the Lake City Post Office--An Artist's Portrayal," reproduced from the Boston Post, 10 August 1899.

Reactions

The lynching was met with widespread condemnation, including across the South. The lynching was defended by those who agreed with South Carolina Senator Benjamin Tillman, who said the "proud people" of Lake City refused to receive "their mail from a nigger." [3]

Journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett denounced the lynching and noted that the lynchers had not even pretended that Baker had committed a crime, as mobs often did. [8] At a mass protest in Chicago, she mocked the lynchers as southerners "whose proud boast is their chivalry toward womanhood." [9] To present the resolutions passed at that meeting, she met with President McKinley, arguing that Baker's murder "was a federal matter, pure and simple. He died at his post of duty in defense of his country's honor, as truly as did ever a soldier on the field of battle." [10] McKinley assured her that an investigation was underway. While in Washington, Wells-Barnett also urged Congress to provide support to the survivors. Legislators could not overcome the opposition of the Democrats and nearly Solid South block to authorize such support. [9]

While the lynching of the Bakers had to compete with the sinking of the USS Maine and the escalating tensions between the United States and Spain for the attention of the press, coverage of it was widespread. [9] In South Carolina, white newspapers condemned the murder as "dastardly" and "revolting." [3] The Williamsburg County Record called the lynching "the darkest blot upon South Carolina's history." It said the McKinley administration was also to blame for "thrusting venal negro henchmen into Southern offices of trust." [9]

Investigation and trial

Lavinia Baker's testimony at trial

I was in the building, with the baby in my arms. [Frazier] saw that I could not move, and he grabbed me, saying, "Come on, we might as well die running as standing." At the door, the baby was shot: the baby was shot out of my arms. I said, "See, the baby's dead." Baker stepped back and saw his dead child; he opened the door and was shot. I followed. Baker fell over and died, leaning against my lap.

Lavinia Baker, quoted in Fordham 2008

A grand jury was convened in Williamsburg County, but failed to return any indictments. The McKinley administration conducted a robust investigation of the murder, initially offering a $1,500 ($54,936 today) reward for the arrest and conviction of members of the mob. [3] [11] Despite resistance by witnesses to testifying, on 1 July 1898 prosecutors indicted 7 men on the charge of murdering Baker. [12] Ultimately, thirteen men were indicted in U.S. Circuit Court on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, assault, and destruction of mail on 7 April 1899, after two men, Joseph P. Newham and Early P. Lee, turned state's evidence in exchange for their charges being dropped. [3] [13]

The trial was held in federal court from 10–22 April 1899, and the list of defendants was as follows: [14]

  • Alonza Rogers
  • Charles D. Joyner
  • Edwin Rogers
  • Ezra McKnight
  • Henry Godwin
  • Henry Stokes
  • Marion Clark
  • Martin Ward
  • Moultrie Epps
  • Oscar Kelly
  • W. A. Webster

The all-white jury was composed of businessmen from across the state. [3] Newham, the prosecution's star witness, admitted to starting the fire and identified eight of the defendants as having participated in the murders. He expressed no remorse for the death of Baker and his daughter. Another witness, M. B. Springs, identified Henry Stokes as the ringleader; Springs was ostracized in Lake City and was ultimately placed under police protection. Henderson Williams, an African-American witness, testified that he had seen armed white men at the post office on the night of the lynching. He was threatened and fled to Florence after a white business partner threatened to "do [him] like they did Baker." [3]

The jury deliberated for around 24 hours before declaring a mistrial; the jury was deadlocked in reaching a verdict, five to five . [15] The case was never retried.

Following the mistrial, Lake City whites asked that the post office be reopened and mail service restored. Many African Americans derided this as hypocritical. [3]

Baker family

Lavinia Baker is treated by Dr. Alonzo McClennan at the Charleston Colored Hospital. Lavinia Baker treated by Dr. McClennan.png
Lavinia Baker is treated by Dr. Alonzo McClennan at the Charleston Colored Hospital.

On 2 May 1898, a mass meeting was held at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which passed a resolution condemning the attack. The congregation collected $16 ($460.61 today using the same multiplier as above) for the Baker family. [16]

Lavinia Baker and her five surviving children remained in Charleston for several months after the verdict. Lillian Clayton Jewett met with Dr. Alonzo C. McClennan, the Charleston physician chairing a committee charged with the Bakers' welfare, and arranged a meeting with Lavinia. [17] Lavinia agreed to accompany Jewett back to Boston, and she and her children were accompanied there by Jewett and Dr. Lucy Hughes Brown, a colleague of Dr. McClennan. Baker and Jewett had a falling out after several public appearances, as William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. led fund-raising efforts in order to buy a home for the Baker family near Boston. [18]

The Bakers remained in Boston but out of public life. The surviving Baker children fell victim to a tuberculosis epidemic, with four children {William; Sarah; Lincoln, Cora} dying from the disease 1908–1920. [19] [20] [21] [22] Lavinia's last surviving child, Rosa Baker, [23] died in 1942. [24] Having lost all her children, Lavinia Baker returned to Florence County, where she lived until her death in Cartersville, South Carolina in 1947. [17]

Lake City

In 1918, the St. James AME Church was constructed on the site of Baker's burned post office and house. On October 5, 1955, the church was burned down. [25] Locals suspected arson by white supremacists angry at the activism of minister Joseph DeLaine during the Civil Rights Movement on behalf of the NAACP. [26] Racists had warned DeLaine that he lived "where the black postmaster was shot to death many years ago." [27]

In 2003, the state General Assembly passed a resolution in favor of installing a South Carolina historical marker about the lynching and house fire. [27] [28] That marker was unveiled in October 2013 on South Church Street, the previous location of the post office and Baker's home. [29]

See also

Related Research Articles

In the broader context of racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rowan County, North Carolina</span> County in North Carolina, United States

Rowan County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina that was formed in 1753, as part of the British Province of North Carolina. It was originally a vast territory with unlimited western boundaries, but its size was reduced to 524 square miles (1,360 km2) after several counties were formed from Rowan County in the 18th and 19th centuries. As of the 2020 census, its population was 146,875. Its county seat, Salisbury, is the oldest continuously populated European-American town in the western half of North Carolina. Rowan County is located northeast of Charlotte, and is considered part of the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake City, South Carolina</span> City in South Carolina, United States

Lake City is a city in Florence County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 6,675 at the 2010 census. Located in central South Carolina, it is south of Florence and included as part of the Florence Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbia, Tennessee</span> City in Tennessee, United States

Columbia is a city in and the county seat of Maury County, Tennessee. The population was 41,690 as of the 2020 United States census. Columbia is included in the Nashville metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Tillman</span> American politician (1847–1918)

Benjamin Ryan Tillman was a politician of the Democratic Party who served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William D. Jelks</span> American politician

William Dorsey Jelks was an American newspaper editor, publisher, and politician who served as the 32nd Governor of Alabama from 1901 to 1907. As Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, he also served as acting governor between December 1 and December 26, 1900, when Governor William J. Samford was out-of-state seeking medical treatment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Summer</span> 1919 period of white supremacist terrorism and racial riots in many U.S. cities

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching in the United States</span> Extrajudicial killings in the United States by mobs or vigilante groups

Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s and ended during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to the 1920s, and they primarily victimized ethnic minorities. Most of the lynchings occurred in the American South, as the majority of African Americans lived there, but racially motivated lynchings also occurred in the Midwest and border states. In 1891, the largest single mass lynching in American history was perpetrated in New Orleans against Italian immigrants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Springfield race riot of 1908</span> Conflict in Springfield, Illinois

The Springfield race riot of 1908 consisted of events of mass racial violence committed against African Americans by a mob of about 5,000 white Americans and European immigrants in Springfield, Illinois, between August 14 and 16, 1908. Two black men had been arrested as suspects in a rape, and attempted rape and murder. The alleged victims were two young white women and the father of one of them. When a mob seeking to lynch the men discovered the sheriff had transferred them out of the city, the whites furiously spread out to attack black neighborhoods, murdered black citizens on the streets, and destroyed black businesses and homes. The state militia was called out to quell the rioting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilmington massacre</span> Insurrection and successful coup by white supremacists in North Carolina, U.S.

The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, was a coup d'état and a massacre which was carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by black people. Since the late 20th century and further study, the event has been characterized as a violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Charles riots</span>

The Robert Charles riots of July 24–27, 1900 in New Orleans, Louisiana were sparked after Afro-American laborer Robert Charles fatally shot a white police officer during an altercation and escaped arrest. A large manhunt for him ensued, and a white mob started rioting, attacking blacks throughout the city. The manhunt for Charles began on Monday, July 23, 1900, and ended when Charles was killed on Friday, July 27, shot by a special police volunteer. The mob shot him hundreds more times, and beat the body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Afro-American Council</span>

The National Afro-American Council was the first nationwide civil rights organization in the United States, created in 1898 in Rochester, New York. Before its dissolution a decade later, the Council provided both the first national arena for discussion of critical issues for African Americans and a training ground for some of the nation's most famous civil rights leaders in the 1910s, 1920s, and beyond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Anthony Crawford</span> African American who was lynched in the U.S.

Anthony Crawford was an African American man who was killed by a lynch mob in Abbeville, South Carolina on October 21, 1916.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phoenix election riot</span>

The Phoenix election riot occurred on November 8, 1898, near Greenwood County, South Carolina, when a group of local white Democrats attempted to stop a Republican election official from taking the affidavits of African Americans who had been denied the ability to vote. The race-based riot was part of numerous efforts by white conservative Democrats to suppress voting by blacks, as they had largely supported the Republican Party since the Reconstruction era. Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, and South Carolina in 1895, southern states were passing new constitutions and laws designed to disenfranchise blacks by making voter registration and voting more difficult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longview race riot</span> Race riot and lynching in Texas, US

The Longview race riot was a series of violent incidents in Longview, Texas, between July 10 and July 12, 1919, when whites attacked black areas of town, killed one black man, and burned down several properties, including the houses of a black teacher and a doctor. It was one of the many race riots in 1919 in the United States during what became known as Red Summer, a period after World War I known for numerous riots occurring mostly in urban areas.

The lynching of the Walker family took place near Hickman, Fulton County, Kentucky, on October 3, 1908, at the hands of about fifty masked Night Riders. David Walker was a landowner, with a 21.5-acre (8.7 ha) farm. The entire family of seven African Americans including parents, infant in arms, and four children were killed, with the event reported by national newspapers. Governor Augustus E. Willson of Kentucky strongly condemned the murders and promised a reward for information leading to prosecution. No one was ever prosecuted.

John Hartfield was a black man who was lynched in Ellisville, Mississippi in 1919 for allegedly having a white girlfriend. The murder was announced a day in advance in major newspapers, a crowd of as many as 10,000 watched while Hartfield was hanged, shot, and burned. Pieces of his corpse were chopped off and sold as souvenirs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Paul Reed and Will Cato</span> Murders and lynchings in Statesboro, Georgia in 1904

The lynching of Paul Reed and Will Cato occurred in Statesboro, Georgia on August 16, 1904. Five members of a white farm family, the Hodges, had been murdered and their house burned to hide the crime. Paul Reed and Will Cato, who were African-American, were tried and convicted for the murders. Despite militia having been brought in from Savannah to protect them, the two men were taken by a mob from the courthouse immediately after their trials, chained to a tree stump, and burned. In the immediate aftermath, four more African-Americans were shot, three of them dying, and others were flogged.

The Seminole burning was the lynching by live burning of two Seminole youth, Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson, near Maud, Oklahoma, on January 8, 1898.

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 Williamson, Joel (1984). The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation . New York: Oxford University Press. p.  190. ISBN   978-0-19-802049-3.
  2. 1 2 Dray 2007, 116.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Finnegan, Terence (2013). A Deed So Accursed: Lynching in Mississippi and South Carolina, 1881–1940 . American South series. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. pp.  50–55. ISBN   978-0-8139-3385-6 . Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  4. ↑ Tindall, George B. (1952). South Carolina Negroes: 1877 - 1900. Southern Classics. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 255–256. ISBN   978-1-57003-494-7 . Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  5. ↑ 1900 US Census Lavania Baker, widow age listed as 39
  6. ↑ Fordham 2008, p. 70.
  7. ↑ Fordham 2008, p. 72.
  8. ↑ Giddings, Paula J. (2009). Ida: A Sword Among Lions. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 386–387. ISBN   978-0-06-079736-2 . Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Carter, David C. (March 23, 2012). 'No Painted Apache Ever Did Anything Half So Wanton, or Cannibal in Darkest Africa Ever Acted Upon a More Fiendish Impulse': Newspaper Reactions to the 1898 Lynching of Postmaster Frazier Baker in Lake City, South Carolina on the Eve of the Spanish American War (PDF). Media & Civil Rights History Symposium. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  10. ↑ Dray 2007, 312.2.
  11. ↑ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–" . Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  12. ↑ "CHARGED WITH MURDER.; Seven Men Held at Charleston for Alleged Killing of Postmaster Baker". The New York Times. July 2, 1898. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  13. ↑ "THE LAKE CITY LYNCHING.; Thirteen Men Indicted in a Federal Court for the Alleged Murder of the Negro Postmaster" (PDF). The New York Times . April 8, 1899. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  14. ↑ Fordham 2008, p. 69.
  15. ↑ Fordham 2008, p. 73.
  16. ↑ Fordham 2008, p. 67.
  17. 1 2 Hux, Roger Kent (Winter 1991). "Lillian Clayton Jewett and the Rescue of the Baker Family, 1899-1900" (PDF). Historical Journal of Massachusetts. 19 (1): 13–23. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  18. ↑ Garrison, William Lloyd Jr. (September 23, 1899). "TO AID THE BAKER FAMILY". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  19. ↑ Death Record of William Baker 1908
  20. ↑ Death Record of Sarah Baker 1909
  21. ↑ Death Record of Lincoln Baker 1916
  22. ↑ Death Record of Cora Baker 1920
  23. ↑ 1900 Census record of Rosa Baker
  24. ↑ "Lake City Lynching". Archived from the original on February 12, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
  25. ↑ "State and County Officers Investigating Church Fire". Florence Morning News (Florence, South Carolina). October 7, 1955. p. 22.
  26. ↑ "S. C. Whites Burn Church to Chase Minister". Jet. Vol. 8, no. 24. Johnson Publishing Company. October 20, 1955. pp. 3–5.
  27. 1 2 Fordham 2008, p. 74.
  28. ↑ South Carolina Department of Archives and History (2009). "Florence County" (Database). South Carolina Historical Marker Program. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  29. ↑ Brown, Tonya (October 4, 2013). "Lake City honors postmaster lynched 115 years ago". CarolinaLive . Retrieved October 5, 2013.
Bibliography
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.