A Double Lynching
February 1, 1902
Summary
Two white men wildly accused black men of stealing their hogs without proof, immediately attempting to arrest and kill them. Suddenly one of the black men shoots the white man. They hang three random black men without confirmation that they were the ones who committed the crime.
Transcription
Two more colored men were offered up to the fiendish brutality of Judge Lynch last week.
The telegraphic report bears date of the Jan. 27. It seems that G.N. Grant, and a white man named McKay were out hunting when they came upon some colored men cleaning hogs in Carroll Parish, Louisiana.
Grant claimed that the hogs belonged to him. It has never been explained how he could tell his hogs from any body else’s or whether he could recognize them even if turned inside out or outside in.
Any way, he claimed the hogs as his property without even counting his hogs beforehand to see if any were missing. To charge men with stealing without having evidence of it was bad enough; but he attempted to arrest them without a shadow of the authority of the law.
It is evident that he was about to shoot them. Be this as it may, the colored brother was two quick for him, firing first, the bullet lodging in the brain.
McKay quickly disappeared and aroused the white people in the neighborhood, who formed a lynching party and succeeded in capturing three colored men.
As to whether any of them were the ones who shot Grant and killed him, deponent sayeth not.
They proceeded to hang two of them, while no doubt the colored brother who did the shooting is even now going in another direction as fast as his legs can carry him.
This is the idea of justice now prevailing in this benighted section. It is a virtual announcement that there can be no self-defense as between a white and a colored person when the former loses his life in the deadly duel.
Three lives are offered up for a few hogs, thus placing a value upon the four-legged animals all out of proportion to the market prices now prevailing.
The sacrifice of two colored men and the loss of one white one may result a better state of feeling.
Certain it is, that hog-owners will be more careful in identifying property in the hands of colored men.
They will exercise caution in dealing with colored men, realizing that continued oppression and submission to oppression leads at times to a desperation, the exercise of which causes the colored man to set no value upon his own life and care still less for the life of the man whom he is attacking.
Lynch-law must go!
The telegraphic report bears date of the Jan. 27. It seems that G.N. Grant, and a white man named McKay were out hunting when they came upon some colored men cleaning hogs in Carroll Parish, Louisiana.
Grant claimed that the hogs belonged to him. It has never been explained how he could tell his hogs from any body else’s or whether he could recognize them even if turned inside out or outside in.
Any way, he claimed the hogs as his property without even counting his hogs beforehand to see if any were missing. To charge men with stealing without having evidence of it was bad enough; but he attempted to arrest them without a shadow of the authority of the law.
It is evident that he was about to shoot them. Be this as it may, the colored brother was two quick for him, firing first, the bullet lodging in the brain.
McKay quickly disappeared and aroused the white people in the neighborhood, who formed a lynching party and succeeded in capturing three colored men.
As to whether any of them were the ones who shot Grant and killed him, deponent sayeth not.
They proceeded to hang two of them, while no doubt the colored brother who did the shooting is even now going in another direction as fast as his legs can carry him.
This is the idea of justice now prevailing in this benighted section. It is a virtual announcement that there can be no self-defense as between a white and a colored person when the former loses his life in the deadly duel.
Three lives are offered up for a few hogs, thus placing a value upon the four-legged animals all out of proportion to the market prices now prevailing.
The sacrifice of two colored men and the loss of one white one may result a better state of feeling.
Certain it is, that hog-owners will be more careful in identifying property in the hands of colored men.
They will exercise caution in dealing with colored men, realizing that continued oppression and submission to oppression leads at times to a desperation, the exercise of which causes the colored man to set no value upon his own life and care still less for the life of the man whom he is attacking.
Lynch-law must go!
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Lower Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Brooke Royer
Citation
“A Double Lynching,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed March 21, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/63.