Black, White & Blood

In the back of every Southern white man's head lies a mortal dread that some night, somehow, some crazy black man will lay hands on his wife or daughter, rape her, kill her, or both. For the white man, eternal vigilance over his womenfolk is impractical, impossible. And such crimes as he mortally fears do happen. One happened near Birmingham, Ala. last week.

Three young girls of good Birmingham families were out for an evening motor drive. They were Nell and Augusta Williams, daughters of an attorney, and Jennie Wood, whose father is a produce dealer. Suddenly out of the shadows of a wood sprang a Negro in overalls. He leaped on the running board, ordered the girls at gunpoint to drive up a lonely road. There he robbed them. Not satisfied with that, he began insulting the frightened young women, threatened "to get even for what their race had done to his.'' At this point, Nell Williams made a grab for the gun. The Negro shot her in the arm. He shot her sister in the stomach, and another slug tore into Miss Wood's spine. With her friends stretched groaning in the woods, Nell Williams jumped in the car and made for the nearest house, three miles away.

When she drove back with help she found her sister dying. The Wood girl may live.

That night 100 sheriff's deputies and many a private citizen combed the nearby woods for the killer, but he had fled into the hills, vanished. Terrified, innocent Negroes trembled behind the thin walls of their clapboard cabins. The misdirected white man's fury which they feared was not long in arriving. Eleven suspects were jailed. They were comparatively lucky. At Irondale, 10 mi. from Birmingham, two whites shot two blacks from the top of a passing box car. One Negro died. In Birmingham, a Negro was dragged out of his home by two whites, led two blocks up the street and shot in the back of the neck. Another pair of white men. in the city's suburbs, shot another negro.

Independent of the Birmingham disturbance, elsewhere in the U. S. last week black and white blood was plentifully spilled:

P: In Chicago's Black Belt, police evicted a colored woman from her flat. Instantly a crowd estimated at 3.000 gathered in the street. Evidently led by Communist agitators, shouting 'Tut that furniture back!" and "We want something to eat!" they rushed the constables. Casualties: three Negroes killed, 20 Negroes and whites injured. Mayor Anton Cermak ordered further evictions to cease. P:Near Pointe-a-la-Hache, La., occurred Lynching No. 4 for the year. The victim, Oscar Livingston, 23, had been jailed on a charge of attempted rape of a young white woman. Eight days after his incarceration a band of masked white men broke into the jail, drove Negro Livingston 15 mi., made him get out of the car and run for it. They shot him as he ran. P:Three days later at Hayneville, Ala., Lynching No. 5 took place. A Negro boy was said to have frightened an 11-year-old white girl. A crowd took him out of town, tied him to a tree with a rope and dog chain, shot him 32 times, twice for every year he had lived.

P:At De Witt, Ark., three days after that, occurred Lynching No. 6. A Negro and a white man forced a deputy sheriff to surrender Negro John Parker, arrested on a murder charge. Negro Parker was taken to the roadside, killed. His colored assailant was promptly arrested for murder. The white man was held as an accessory.

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