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 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.
These murders took place in a period of civil disruption when white farmers in western Kentucky and Tennessee organized as Night Riders, threatening and attacking people after the West Tennessee Land Company took private control of the
Reelfoot Lake
Reelfoot Lake is a shallow natural lake located in the northwest portion of the U.S. state of Tennessee, in Lake and Obion Counties. Much of it is swamp-like, with bayou-like ditches (some natural, some man-made) connecting more open bodies of wate ...
. Local residents had long treated the lake as their own. They were also resisting the expansion into this area of the cotton economy, led by large-scale planters who hired many African Americans as sharecroppers.
After two prominent white attorneys related to the land company were kidnapped and one murdered in Lake County, Tennessee governor
Malcolm Rice Patterson directed an investigation and ordered in the state militia to suppress the violence. Six men were convicted and sentenced to death in that case. The state of Tennessee acquired the lake, preserving it for public use as a state park.
[Jama McMurtery Grove, "Uneasy Waters: The Night Riders at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, 1908"], 2012, East Tennessee University; Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1496. http://dc.etsu.edu etd/1496]
Background
In the spring of 1908, white yeoman farmers and fishermen in
Fulton County, Kentucky
Fulton County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of Kentucky, with the Mississippi River forming its western boundary. As of the 2010 census, the population was 6,813. Its county seat is Hickman. The county was formed in 1845 from Hick ...
, and
Lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
and
Obion counties in neighboring western Tennessee began to organize as Night Riders in opposition to the West Tennessee Land Company, a group of private investors who had acquired most of
Reelfoot Lake
Reelfoot Lake is a shallow natural lake located in the northwest portion of the U.S. state of Tennessee, in Lake and Obion Counties. Much of it is swamp-like, with bayou-like ditches (some natural, some man-made) connecting more open bodies of wate ...
and announced plans to drain it for cotton cultivation. The local people had long used the lake for fishing and farmed the fertile land nearby. They did not want it converted to exclusively private use. For months they hanged, beat and threatened other locals, with violence extending to threats and lynchings of African Americans to drive them out of the area. This was also a period when locals were resisting the expansion of the cotton economy into this area, which had been dominated by yeomen farmers.
By the early 20th century, some African Americans in Fulton County had become landowners. Among them was David Walker, who had a 21 1/2-acre farm a few miles from
Hickman
Hickman or Hickmann may refer to:
People
* Hickman (surname), notable people with the surname Hickman or Hickmann
* Hickman Ewing, American attorney
* Hickman Price (1911–1989), assistant secretary in the United States Department of Commerce
* ...
, where he and his wife were raising a large family. They had built their log cabin farmhouse.
The killings
After David Walker, a married African-American farmer and family man, had an altercation with a white man, a mob of 50 Night Riders came to his house at night and threatened him, saying he had to go with them. When he refused to come out of his house, the lynch mob poured coal oil on it and set it on fire. Walker pleaded for the safety of him and his family, and then walked outside, where he was shot so many times that his body was riddled with bullets. The same thing happened when David Walker's wife came outside, holding a baby in her arms.
"She held in her arms their infant child and begged the Night Riders for mercy. Disregarding her pleadings the infuriated mob opened fire and a bullet pierced the body of an infant in its mother's arms. A second shot struck the mother in the abdomen and she fell, still holding the dead body of her infant."
Three children came out next, and were quickly shot and killed by the mob. Walker's eldest son, however, refused to leave the burning log cabin. The ''
Courier-Journal
''The Courier-Journal'',
also known as the
''Louisville Courier Journal''
(and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''),
is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Net ...
'' reported, "There is hardly a doubt but the oldest son of Walker preferred death by burning rather than to placing himself as the mercy of the mob, and it is probable that his charred body will be found among the debris."
[Wright, George C. ''Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and "Legal Lynchings"'', University of Illinois Press, 1990, pp. 123-124] Local papers blamed Walker for the events, describing him as "surly" and having been disrespectful to a white woman.
[
George Wright wrote that a total of seven family members were killed,] but E.M. Beck and Stewart E. Tolnay say that it may have been eight. A 2001 Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
report suggested that one or a few of the Walker children survived.
Catalyst for the lynching
According to local newspapers, the Fulton County Night Riders claimed that David Walker had sworn "at a white woman", considered a violation of Jim Crow custom. Whites described Walker as having a bad reputation, and said he was a "surly negro".Smith, Gerald L. ''A Black Educator in the Segregated South: Kentucky's Rufus B. Atwood''
/ref> While whites ostensibly used lynchings to regulate the behavior of blacks, including "attitude" and social behavior, economic competition has frequently been identified to be the underlying cause of lynchings. After David Walker was killed, his adjacent neighbor took over Walker's 21 1/2 acres of property. He later sold it to another white man, whose daughter owns the property today. It has not been developed.[
]
Governor's condemnation
Augustus E. Willson denounced the Night Riders for the lynching of the Walker family. He said,
"If two or three men had gone to this poor cabin and murdered this family, the crime would have shocked humanity with its revelation of incredible weakness, brutality and dastardly cowardice. That a larger number—some fifty men—joined in such a crime, multiplies its cowardliness and wickedness fiftyfold, and makes every member of the band guilty of murder in the first degree."
Willson said the lynching of the Walker family was "an outgrowth and the logical results of the toleration of night rider crimes in the state. It is only one step removed from civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
." From 1907 through 1908, other Night Riders had committed increasingly destructive crimes in the Black Patch Tobacco Wars
The Black Patch Tobacco Wars were a period of civil unrest and violence in the western counties of the U.S. states of Kentucky and Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century, circa 1904-1909. The so-called "Black Patch" consists of about 30 count ...
, especially in Kentucky and Tennessee counties to the east of here. They had raided and took control of the county seats of Princeton, Hopkinsville, and Russellville, Kentucky, destroying tobacco warehouses and tons of stored tobacco of non-PPA farmers, and raiding major planters in Crittenden County. As they escaped control of the planters, they made more attacks against African Americans as well.
Willson offered a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of any Night Rider who participated in the Walker family lynching. He urged law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, promising a Governor's pardon to anyone who shot and killed a Night Rider.[Wright, 1990, ''Racial Violence in Kentucky'', p. 191]
Aftermath
Seven of the Walker family were brutally murdered. As was typical of lynchings of black people, no one was prosecuted for this crime.[Wright (1990), ''Racial Violence in Kentucky'', p. 321. https://books.google.com/books?id=f9gzdOkMfbAC&dq=lynching+david+walker+family+fulton+hickman&pg=PT343]
Violence continued in the region, culminating in the kidnapping of two prominent white attorneys and lynching murder of one, Captain Quentin Rankin, a shareholder in the Land Company. Governor Malcolm Rice Patterson of Tennessee called out the state militia to investigate the murder and suppress the violence. More than 300 suspects were arrested; six were convicted and sentenced to death for Rankin's murder. Tennessee acquired the lake and land, ultimately establishing it as Reelfoot Lake State Park
Reelfoot Lake State Park is a state park in the northwest corner of Tennessee in the United States. It encompasses Reelfoot Lake and is situated in Lake and Obion counties. The park itself makes up , divided into ten sections around the lake. A ...
, so that public use was assured.
See also
* Lynching of Marie Thompson of Shepherdsville
* Lynchings of Benjamin and Mollie French
References
Further reading
Paul Vanderwood, ''Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake''
Memphis, Tenn.: Memphis State University Press, 1969; e-book University of Alabama Press, 2015,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker family
Deaths by person in Kentucky
Family murders
Fulton County, Kentucky
Lynching deaths in Kentucky
Racially motivated violence against African Americans
1908 in Kentucky
October 1908 events
1908 murders in the United States
Massacres in 1908
Massacres in the United States