![Peoples-grocery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Peoples-grocery.jpg)
The People's Grocery lynchings occurred on March 9, 1892, in
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
, when black grocery owner Thomas Moss and two of his workers, Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell, were
lynched
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
by a
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
mob while in police custody. The lynchings occurred in the aftermath of a fight between whites and blacks and two subsequent shooting altercations in which two white police officers were wounded.
The store was located just outside Memphis in a neighborhood called the "Curve". Opened in 1889, the People's Grocery was a cooperative venture run along corporate lines and owned by 11 prominent African Americans, including postman Thomas Moss, a friend of
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for ...
.
Timeline leading up to the lynching
March 2–4, 1892
By the 1890s, there were increasing racial tensions in the Curve neighborhood that spilled over between Thomas Moss, a successful black grocer, and William Barrett, a white grocer. Barrett’s grocery had a virtual monopoly prior to Moss's venture, despite Barret’s bad reputation as a "low-dive gambling den" and a location where liquor could be illegally purchased.
On Wednesday, March 2, 1892, trouble began when a young black boy, Armour Harris, and a young white boy, Cornelius Hurst, got into a fight over a game of marbles outside People's Grocery. When the white boy's father stepped in and began beating the black boy, two black workers from the grocery (Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell) came to his defense. More blacks and whites joined the fray, and at one point William Barrett was clubbed. He identified Will Stewart as his assailant.
On Thursday, March 3, Barrett returned to the People's Grocery with a police officer and the two were met by Calvin McDowell. McDowell told them no one matching Stewart's description was within the store. The frustrated Barrett hit McDowell with his revolver and knocked him down, dropping the gun in the process. McDowell picked it up and shot at Barrett, but missed. McDowell was subsequently arrested but released on bond on March 4. Warrants were also issued for Will Stewart and Armour Harris.
The warrants enraged the black residents of the neighborhood who called a meeting during which they vowed to clean out the neighborhood's "damned white trash", which Barrett brought to the authorities' attention as evidence of a black conspiracy against whites.
March 5–8, 1892
On Saturday, March 5, Judge Julius DuBose, a former Confederate soldier, was quoted in the ''Appeal-Avalanche'' newspaper as vowing to form a posse to get rid of the "high-handed rowdies" in the Curve. That same day John Mosby, a black painter, was fatally shot after an altercation with a clerk in another white grocery in the Curve; as reported in the ''Appeal-Avalanche'', Mosby cursed at the clerk after being denied credit for a purchase and the clerk responded by punching him. Mosby returned that evening and hit the clerk with a stick, whereupon the clerk shot him.
The People's Grocery men were increasingly concerned about an attack upon them, based on Dubose's threat and the Mosby shooting. They consulted a lawyer but were told since they were outside the city limits they could not depend on police protection and should prepare to defend themselves.
On the evening of March 5, six armed white men—including a county sheriff and recently deputized plainclothes civilians—headed toward the People's Grocery. White papers claimed their purpose was to inquire after Will Stewart and arrest him if he was there. In an account written by five black ministers in the ''St. Paul Appeal'', the men were said to arrive with a rout in mind, for they had first gone to William Barrett's place then divided up and surreptitiously posted themselves at the front and back entrance to the People's Grocery. The men inside, already anticipating a mob attack, were being surrounded by armed whites and did not know they were officers of the law.
When the whites entered the store they were shot at and several were hit; McDowell was captured at the scene and identified as an assailant. The black postman Nat Trigg was seized by deputy Charley Cole but Trigg shot Cole in the face and managed to escape. The injured whites retreated to Barrett's store and more deputized whites were dispatched to the grocery where they eventually arrested thirteen blacks and seized a cache of weapons and ammunition.
Reports in white papers described the shooting as a cold-blooded, calculated ambush by the blacks and, though none of the deputies had died, they predicted the wounds of Cole and Bob Harold, who was shot in the face and neck, would prove fatal. The five ministers writing in the''St. Paul Appeal'' said as soon as the black men realized the intruders were law officers they dropped their weapons and submitted to arrest, confident they would be able to explain their case in court.
March 5–8, 1892
On Sunday, March 6, hundreds of white civilians were deputized and fanned out from the grocery to conduct a house-to-house search for blacks involved in "the conspiracy". They eventually arrested forty black people, including Armour Harris and his mother, Nat Trigg, and Tommie Moss. The story in the black paper contended that Moss was tending his books at the back of the store on the night of the shooting and couldn't have seen what happened when the whites arrived. When he heard gunshots he left the premises. In the eyes of many whites, however, Moss' position as a postman and the president of the
co-op
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
made him a ringleader of the conspiracy. He was also indicted in the white press for an insolent attitude when he was arrested.
Upon news of the arrest armed whites congregated around the fortress-like Shelby County Jail. Members of the black Tennessee Rifles militia also posted themselves outside the jail to keep watch and guard against a lynching. On Monday, March 7, Tommie's pregnant wife Betty Moss came to jail with food for her husband, but was turned away by Judge DuBose who told her to come back again in three days. On Tuesday, March 8, lawyers for several of the black men filed writs of
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
but DuBose quashed them.
After news filtered out that the injured deputies were not going to die the tensions outside the jail seemed to abate and the Tennessee Rifles thought it was no longer necessary to guard the jail grounds, especially as the Shelby County Jail itself was thought to be impregnable. But, as Ida B. Wells would write in retrospect, the news that the deputies would survive was actually a catalyst for violence for the black men could not now be legally executed.
The lynching, March 9, 1892
![Cover Southern horrors](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Cover_Southern_horrors.png)
On Wednesday, March 9, at about 2:30 a.m. 75 men in black masks surrounded the Shelby County Jail and nine entered. They dragged Tommie Moss, Will Stewart, and Calvin McDowell from their cells and brought them to a Chesapeake & Ohio railroad yard a mile outside of Memphis. What followed was described in such harrowing detail by white papers that it was clear reporters had been called in advance to witness the lynching.
At the railroad yard McDowell "struggled mightily" and at one point managed to grab a shotgun from one of his abductors. After the mob wrested it from him they shot at his hands and fingers "inch by inch" until they were shot to pieces. Replicating the wounds the white deputies had suffered they shot four holes into McDowell's face, each large enough for a fist to enter. His left eye was shot out and the "ball hung over his cheek in shreds." His jaw was torn out by buckshot. Where "his right eye had been there was a big hole which his brains oozed out." The account by the five ministers in the ''Appeal-Avalanche'' added that his injuries were in accord with his "vicious and unyielding nature."
Will Stewart was described as the most stoic of the three, "obdurate and unyielding to the last." He was also shot on the right side of the neck with a shotgun, and was shot with a pistol in the neck and left eye. Moss was also shot in the neck; his dying words, reported in the papers, were: "Tell my people to go West, there is no justice for them here."
Aftermath
The murders led to increasing grief and unrest among the black population, along with rumors that blacks planned to meet at the People's Grocery and take revenge against whites. Judge DuBose ordered the sheriff to take possession of the swords and guns belonging to the Tennessee Rifles and to dispatch a hundred men to the People's Grocery where they should "shoot down on sight any Negro who appears to be making trouble." Gangs of armed white men rushed to the Curve and began shooting wildly into any groups of blacks they encountered, then looted the grocery. Subsequently, the grocery was sold for one-eighth its cost to William Barrett.
The lynching became a front-page story in the ''New York Times'' on March 10, which countered the image of the "
New South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the ...
" that Memphis was trying to promote. The lynching sparked national outrage, and
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for ...
' editorial embraced Moss' dying words, which encouraged blacks to strike out for the West and "leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons." This sparked an emigration movement that eventually saw 6,000
blacks
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...
leave
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
for the Western Territories. At a meeting of one thousand people at
Bethel A. M. E. Church in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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in response to this lynching as well as two earlier lynchings (Ed Coy in
Texarkana, Arkansas
Texarkana is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Miller County, on the southwest border of the state. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 29,387. The city is located across the state line from its twin city ...
, and a woman in
Rayville, Louisiana
Rayville is a town in and the parish seat of Richland Parish, Louisiana, Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States. The population, which is 69 percent African American, was 4,234 at the 2000 United States Census, 2000 census, but it ...
), a call by the presiding minister for the crowd to sing the then ''de facto'' national anthem, "
America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)
"America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)" is an American patriotic song, the lyrics of which were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The song served as one of the ''de facto'' national anthems of the United States (along with songs like "Hail, Columb ...
" was refused in protest, and the song, "
John Brown's Body
"John Brown's Body" (originally known as "John Brown's Song") is a United States marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of t ...
" was substituted. The widespread violence and particularly the murder of her friends drove Wells to research and document lynchings and their causes. She began investigative journalism by looking at the charges given for the murders, which officially started her anti-lynching campaign.
See also
*
List of unsolved murders
These lists of unsolved murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.
* List of unsolved murders (before 1900)
* List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)
* List of unsolved murders (1980–1999)
* List of unsol ...
Bibliography
Notes
References linked to notes
Books, journals, magazines, and academic papers
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Alternate link''via''
ISSUU
Issuu, Inc. (pronounced "issue") is a Danish-founded American electronic publishing platform based in Palo Alto, California, United States.
Founded in 2004 as a Danish startup, the company moved its headquarters to the United States in 2013.
...
(a version of this story was published in the June 1983 issue of ''
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
).''
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News media
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{{Lynching in the United States
African-American history in Memphis, Tennessee
Companies based in Memphis, Tennessee
Lynching deaths in Tennessee
Racially motivated violence against African Americans
Supermarkets of the United States
Unsolved murders in the United States
1892 in Tennessee
1892 murders in the United States