Wanted to Hang Him

A white man defends the case of a black man who robbed a white man, saying that he does not deserve the death penalty.

We were standing in the Clerk’s office of the Hustings Court of this city, when a discussion of the verdict in the T. A. Goodman (white) murder case arose.
A white gentleman of quiet demeanor, and with a tongue that carried conviction with every word he uttered was declaring that the murderer of Col. H. C. Parsons should have been punished, and that it was a most cold-blooded assassination. Another white man and a police officer took the opposite view, announcing that the verdict of acquittal was all right.
The conversation became highly interesting. The gentleman who was against Goodman, maintained his position with consummate ability and from his standpoint, showed that he was not only a lawyer, but right in his conclusions.
The conversation drifted off to other cases when, the one who was in favor of the acquittal of Goodman said: “I was on the jury here and a nigger was on trial for following a man, knocking him down and robbing him of $6. When the jury retired, the case was discussed, and all of them agreed upon a verdict until they got to me. They wanted to know what I favored and I said hanging. I would not agree to anything else for a long time. The ‘nigger’ got 18 years. He didn’t know whether he killed the man or not and must have intended to do it and I was in favor of hanging him.”
We said nothing, but thought if this was the kind of worthless material that was foisted upon our juries it was needless to expect other than outrageous verdicts.

“Wanted to Hang Him,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1385.