The Murder of a Woman

A white mob brutally murders an African American Woman on the belief that she stole a pocketbook.

Hallie Crutchfield (colored) who lived near Rome, Smith county, Tennessee, was suspected of having found a pocket-book containing one hundred and twenty dollars and on the account was taken by a mob on the night of March 15, 1901, carried to a bridge in the neighborhood where she was bound, shot to death and thrown into the creek. It is impossible to conceive a crime moe barbarous or heinous. She was a woman. The midnight scene, her prostetations of innocence, her pleadings for her life, her prayers to God, and heartlessness of her murderers is not told in that short item which brought news of her death. This was a woman- a colored woman. Suppose she had been a white woman, no matter how degraded, and murderers had been colored, no matter how respectable. Would a man of them be living today? Would their wives and their children be safe? Could a colored man of respectability be found would be willing to take their part? God knows the conditions are becoming worse and worse. All kinds of fiendish tortures are being resorted to. What else can be the tendency than to drive us to some act of desperation which will end it and us as well? For our part, we believe that manhood is necessary and a determination to protect our woman all important. Colored men have been cowed, browbeaten to such an extent, that only in isolated cases can any be found with the nerve to do and to die. These outrages must cease, however, and when the lyncher comes, it is the duty of the free American citizen of color to sell his life as dearly as possible, and with a prayer upon his lips go marching home to heaven.

“The Murder of a Woman,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/256.