Morris Hopkins
May 4, 1895
Summary
A black youth is hanged for beating a man who, over a month later, died from complications from the injury; the youth's father is not allowed to return home with the body.
Transcription
Morris Hopkins, the colored youth charged with the murder of Mr. Henry S. Parsons was hanged Wednesday, April 24th in the Henrico Co., court-house yard at 8 A.M.
The case presented many pathetic features. Hopkins maintained to the last that Mr. Parsons struck at him, and that he warded off the blow and struck him with a stick. The injured man lived nearly a month after the occurrence.
He did not consider the wound of sufficient importance to merit medical attention until sometime afterwards. He then disregarded the physician’s orders by over eating. This caused inflammation of the brain and he died.
But the saddest part of the unfortunate matter was the ruthless manner in which the Anatomical Board claimed the body of the hapless victim. There was old man John Hopkins with his wagon, ready to take the body to his home twelve miles in the country, where it might be laid beside his other children in keeping with Morris Hopkins’ request when the representative of the Medical College came forward and demanded that it be turned over to that institution.
The only thing this heart-broken parent had to carry back to his bereaved wife and children was a bunch of flowers taken from the casket. We have reproduced in another column the denunciation by the Richmond Dispatch and Richmond State of this heartless course of the Anatomical Board.
The crime of this medical organization will appear all the more heinous when it is know that old man John Hopkins and his wife had only a week before lost a child and away out under the shade of the trees with the winds to sing a requiem they had laid to rest the beloved one.
“Morris asked us to bury him beside his sister Julia,” were the sobbing words of his mother to us as we stood on the porch of their humble mansion. “I think it hard that they would not let us have his body, but God knows what to do with them.” She spoke truly. Judgment will follow. Time and again have we called attention to the heartlessness of the law which demands not only the life of the criminal, but the body as well. It is cruel beyond earthly conception and that leading white journals should demand its repeal tells the story that “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
The case presented many pathetic features. Hopkins maintained to the last that Mr. Parsons struck at him, and that he warded off the blow and struck him with a stick. The injured man lived nearly a month after the occurrence.
He did not consider the wound of sufficient importance to merit medical attention until sometime afterwards. He then disregarded the physician’s orders by over eating. This caused inflammation of the brain and he died.
But the saddest part of the unfortunate matter was the ruthless manner in which the Anatomical Board claimed the body of the hapless victim. There was old man John Hopkins with his wagon, ready to take the body to his home twelve miles in the country, where it might be laid beside his other children in keeping with Morris Hopkins’ request when the representative of the Medical College came forward and demanded that it be turned over to that institution.
The only thing this heart-broken parent had to carry back to his bereaved wife and children was a bunch of flowers taken from the casket. We have reproduced in another column the denunciation by the Richmond Dispatch and Richmond State of this heartless course of the Anatomical Board.
The crime of this medical organization will appear all the more heinous when it is know that old man John Hopkins and his wife had only a week before lost a child and away out under the shade of the trees with the winds to sing a requiem they had laid to rest the beloved one.
“Morris asked us to bury him beside his sister Julia,” were the sobbing words of his mother to us as we stood on the porch of their humble mansion. “I think it hard that they would not let us have his body, but God knows what to do with them.” She spoke truly. Judgment will follow. Time and again have we called attention to the heartlessness of the law which demands not only the life of the criminal, but the body as well. It is cruel beyond earthly conception and that leading white journals should demand its repeal tells the story that “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Cord Fox
Citation
“Morris Hopkins,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1398.