There have been over 4700 lynchings in the United States between 1882 and 1968. Seventy-two percent or 3446 were African Americans according to the NAACP and Tuskegee University, although the records don’t seem to include Michael Donald, who was hanged by several Klan members in 1981, and the lynching of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper Texas in 1998. I guess they are using that time frame because racists were hanging people and getting away with it back then. However, in the case of Michael Donald and James Byrd Jr., racists were tied down to rickety old gurneys with solemn masked white men breathing hard over them, carrying long sharp pointy needles with rat poisoning in it and asking a mofo if they have any last words. And if the racist says something they don’t like… Racist: “Faque you!!” Well, then the solemn masked white man with the long sharp pointy needle starts breathing harder and points his finger at another solemn masked white man who nods his head and presses a button with a label that reads… “Don’t Press This.” The next morning there is a headline in the paper that reads, “Spectators Horrified When Prisoners Eyeballs Explode Into Viewing Area. Governor Vows Investigation.” Okay?
Typically when we turn the pages of history and write about black lynchings, they all involved some sort of miscarriage of justice. I mean the black person is usually innocent of their crime or there is no evidence supporting the accusation. This article is going to veer off that theme of being black and innocent and focus on the consequences of being black and guilty. Even today, penalties for blacks and whites that are convicted of the same crime differ widely based on skin color.
Judge: Jeremy Whitecross and Delonte Ciroc Washington Jr… a jury of Jeremy’s peers have found you both guilty of armed robbery in the 1st degree at McRebels 1$ Store. Do you have anything to say before I pronounce the sentence?
Jeremy: Yeah.. tell yo mama I won’t be over tonight…
Judge: Mr. Washington?
Delonte: Your honor, I am truly sorry and apologize to the court, my family, and the victims for my part in this crime.
Judge: Jeremy Whitecross, because of your long criminal past and your utter lack of remorse, the court sentences you to 30 days of home detention and 50hrs… No!!!… 60hrs of community service!!!
Jeremy: I ain’t doing shat!!
Judge: Delonte Ciroc Washington Jr., the court see’s your remorse and understands that people sometimes make bad choices in their life. Because of your humility and your apparent remorse, the court is going to be lenient and sentence you to only 20 years of hard labor, followed by 5 years of supervised probation and 25 hrs of community service. We are also ordering that you be placed on the Violent Sex Offender Registry and that you make restitution to the victims in the amount of one million dollars. Let this be a lesson to you, that when you come out you will be a law-abiding contributing factor to our society. Court adjourned…
Delonte: (Sarcastically) Thank you for that…
So yeah, there is bias even today in our judicial system. In this article, we are going to go back to 1893 and examine being black and guilty in the case of Henry Smith… and how he became… “The Example.”
I Heard That Song Before
Now although Texas wasn’t thought of as being in the same racist league as your traditional cross-burning, hood-wearing, neck-stretching, deep red mud southern states, it was probably only one notch below them. I mean we all have heard of Juneteenth. Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of enslaved black folks in Texas on June 9, 1865. For those who don’t know… you might say so what, all of us were emancipated… big deal. Well the rest of us were emancipated on April 9 in 1865, the day the Civil War ended. Our Texas brothers and sister weren’t told the Civil War had ended. It was only after Union troops arrived there and found them still laboring on the Massa’s plantation, that they were told they were free. That was June 9, 1865. Massa: “Darn it Jimbo… I forgot to tell yall… yall was free. You don’t have to play dat banjo anymo if you don’t want to… Now Jimbo Stop!!… what are you doing? Put that banjo down right now boy!!!” Boy… Don’t Come Any Closer!!!” So yeah they weren’t told. Anywho, there are not many stories coming out of Texas about the debauchery of slavery, although it may have been just as prevalent. So back to our article… Henry Smith was a handyman in Paris Texas. On January 26, 1893, ole Henry Smith was out in the streets, “ucking” with people after having a couple hits of yak. Now Smith feeling it, probably said something he shouldn’t have said to the wrong people. Smith: “Yeah I looked you in the eyeball.. what are you gonna do about it?!!” Karen: “SHERIFF!! SHERIFF!!” A deputy named Henry Vance came and attempted to arrest Smith. I say attempted because as the story goes, Smith resisted and Vance was forced to use the billy on him. Yeah, “he resisted”, where have we heard that story before? Anyways, he must have made Smith cry… because what happened afterward would go down as one of the most savage retributions ever recorded against a black man in Texas history, if not US history.
A Little Salt Ought To Help
In 1893, Reconstruction had ended about 20 years earlier, and the black codes were morphing into Jim Crow. So Reconstruction was the time after the Civil War between 1865 and 1877 when federal troops were down south and protected black folks from the “pisssssed offffff” Confederate soldiers and revengeful southern citizens whose homes and businesses had been burnt to the ground forcing them to live in caves and eat tail of rat soup and drink freshly squeezed rain water collected from dirty socks and pantyhoses. Southern Citizens: “You just wait till dey leave nigra!!” Anyways, after Reconstruction, a lot of black folks were receiving at least one azz whipping a month down south or at least the threat of an azz whipping once a month. Usually, they would shrug it off and go about their business figuring we will see their azz in a dark alley in about a hundred years or so. Well, not Henry Smith. Henry Smith wanted his shat NOW!! He was going to get his revenge right then and there. He did some shat we don’t even do in this time and age. Remember Deputy Vance, the officer that beat Smith with a billy club? Smith went to that “racist white policeman’s” house, went up on his front porch, and kidnapped his 3yr old daughter… IN 1893 DOWN SOUTH IN TEXAS!!! When I read about it, I was expecting to see his blood on the pages! I’m like OMG!! OMG!! Not only did he kidnap her… he murdered that child!! I wanted to throw the book away in case somebody came back from the dead and wanted to lynch me for reading about it!! Witnesses said they saw Smith take the child and carry her through the city. When asked what was he doing with a white child, he told them he was taking her to her mother or to the doctors. The mayor even saw Smith with the child! Later that day, Smith returned home and was confronted by his wife about the child. He told her, “I ain’t seen no white child and don’t have nothing to do with white folks.” The next thing you know… BAM!! Smith upped and left town.
The Usual Suspects
Later that day a search was made to locate Myrtle Vance, the 3yr old who Smith had abducted. They found her near the side of the road at a place called Gibson Pasture. She was dead. Them mofo’s were mad as SHAT!! Mofo: “Take that black shirt off afore I kill you!!” Anywho, you know how it went down. Rumors spread that not only did Smith kill her but she was outraged! Outraged was the word they used instead of rape.
SWORN STATEMENT
Of the Physicians Who Examined Myrtle Yance, the victim.
“On the 26th day of January 1893, by request of A. Cate, mayor of Paris, and J. C. Hunt, Justice of the Peace Precinct No. I, Lamar County, Texas, examined the dead body of Myrtle Vance, aged about three years. We found the body in a semi-rigid state and based our opinion on the fact that death had occurred not more than six or eight hours previous. The chest, abdomen, and lower extremities were covered with blood and bruises under the angle of each jaw, giving evidence of an effort at strangulation and abrasion in front of the left ear. Found a complete laceration of the perineum, extending an inch and a half up the rectum. The posterior part of the vagina ruptured, connecting the abdominal cavity with the vagina, parts bruised and mutilated, unmistakable evidence of rape, hair from the mons-veneris of the negro being found on the pudendum of the baby, held by the clotted blood.”
J. B. CHAPMAN, M. D., City Health Officer. wo S. BALDWIX, M. D.
In reality, after an investigation by Ida B. Wells, it was her opinion that the rape accusation was a bare-faced lie. Well was not only a journalist, but was one of the founding members of the NAACP. Anyway she wrote:
“As a matter of fact, the child was not brutally assaulted as the world has been told, as an excuse for the awful barbarism of that day. Persons who saw the child after its death have stated, under the most solemn pledge to truth, that there was no evidence of such an assault as was published at that time; only a slight abrasion and discoloration were primarily noticeable about the neck.”
To tell the truth, it really didn’t matter as far as Smith was concerned. He “Ucked Up” when he took that racist police officer’s baby off that front porch. Even if he returned her unharmed, all he had to look for in front of him was a very long, extremely painful death after they whipped that azz until they heard the rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting into mofo air! That was written in stone!
Not Another Drop… I Swear To Gawd!
As I said earlier, Smith hauled azz. The killing captured the nation. Railroads offered free travel to anyone participating in the manhunt. Azz whipping were going on all over the country. They wanted him! He was tracked to Reno… then Detroit and finally to his hometown of Clow, Arkansas, just 50 miles from the Texas border. He was easily identified by members of the manhunt from Paris, Texas. Now this is where things get a little muddy for me. At first, he said he didn’t kill the child. Later on, it was said that he confessed on the train ride back to Paris. Smith: “I woke the next day after sleeping beside the child and smothered her.” So being on a train with a bunch of racist fathers and you there being accused of killing a child… a policeman’s child… because he busted a no good nigra like you in the head with a billy club cause you were being disrespectful… and you gonna say something I don’t like?
Racist In Their Samuel Jackson voice: Say it again!! Say You Didn’t Kill That Child Again!! I Dare You!! I Dare You!!”… So there’s that.
But why run if you didn’t do it and why was the child seen with you walking through town? This some OJ Simpson stuff… By the time they got to Texarkana, Arkansas, a mob of 5000 red-hot, racists of the first degree were waiting. Mob: “Give Up The Nigra!! Give Up The NIgra!!” The members of the manhunt from Paris, Texas, begged the people to let the train go so, that Smith could be delivered to the people of Paris and to the family of the child he had killed. Mob: “Just His Private Parts!! Just His Private Parts!!” Okay, they didn’t say that… they let the train go. Now Smith upon seeing the crowd that was at Texarkana knew the depth of the (fill in the word) he was in… all the way up to his soon to be stretched neck! He begged the guard that was holding him to shoot him in the head! He did not want to be delivered into the hands of the extremely “ucked up” people of Paris, Texas!! Meanwhile, in Paris, the bars were closed, along with the schools. A crowd estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 people awaited Smith’s return. They told Smith it was not in the power of all the law officers in Texas to save him. The train arrived in Paris at 1pm. Smith again begged the guards not to turn him over to the mob. They pointed to the great multitude of armed, angry men and told him those men were there to take him at “all hazards.” In the end, Shanklin, the man guarding him, submitted and went away, seeing resistance was useless. That brother was cooked and done.
What You Looking At?
Smith was taken from the train and put on a mule cart and then paraded through the city. In a field they built a 10ft tall wooden tower on which they painted the word, “Justice”. Smith was taken to the top of the tower and for nearly an hour was tortured by Henry Vance, the deputy’s 15-year-old son, and Vance’s brother-in-law. As reported by the New York Times:
“The men placed hot irons under Smith’s feet, burned his trunk and limbs, burned both eyes out with hot irons, and then shoved a hot iron down his throat. Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd.”
Finally, the crowd joined in the bloodletting, pouring kerosene on Smith and lighting it. Smith was burned alive. Witnesses say at some point after the ropes burned away, Smith fell and was kicked back into the fire. When it was all over, the crowd sifted through the charred remains for bones and wood shards as souvenirs. They really… Ima say it… they really fucked him up!!
That’s Some Funny Stuff Governor…
A few weeks later the Governor of Texas characterized the lynching as one of the most brutal episodes in Texas history. On February 6, Gov. Hogg sent an open letter to the Texas legislature urging them to stiffen the state laws against lynching. He wanted to allow the family of the victim to sue for damages, to make the local sheriff ineligible to run for re-election if a prisoner is taken from his custody and harmed and to allow for changes of venue when there is a risk of mob violence. The legislators took it as a joke. As a matter of fact in 1891, two years before the lynching of Henry Smith, the Texas state legislators passed a law making it illegal for anyone to “interfere” with a lynching. The law remained on the books until 1919. Now don’t quote that last fact about interfering with a lynching in Texas during the latter part of the 19th century. I got that info from GPTChat 3-5. I looked it up and since I didn’t know the name of the law, I am having a hard time confirming it. Still, Ima take a page out of the GOP’s handbook and take your friend where you find them. Thanks GPTChat 3.5. So I guess that’s the story of Henry Smith. While his death more likely than not was probably warranted, the manner in which it was carried out by a bloodthirsty racist mob bent on making an example out of a black man this way because they could, can only be placed on the lowest rungs of deprivation and savagery. In the words of Andre Lorde…
“Anger used does not destroy… hate does.” – Andre Lorde 1980
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