Striking Black

The Planet defends three black men who were lynched after killing two white sheriffs, claiming the killing was an act of justice and an example of the “pendulum swinging back their way.”

“Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste death but once.” -Shakespeare
The lynching of colored men in Tennessee has led to the lynching of white men in this same state. Now the pendulum has swung back the other way and one of the most dastardly murders in modern times is again chronicled. The colored men were not charged with heinous crimes. It was not alleged that they had assaulted white women. They killed and wounded white men in a fair fight. These white men are alleged to have been deputy sheriffs, which means that they were ordinary white men of the most commonplace type, who had been designated to exercise the powers and prerogatives of a sheriff. So far as their general appearances may be concerned, they might be lynchers, violators of the law, instead of men lawfully commissioned to uphold the statutes of Tennessee. The telegraphic reports are graphic as well as interesting. They are humorous as well as tragical. They disclose a state of lawlessness that makes no discrimination on account of race or color for it causes the lynching of a prominent white citizen on Reel Foot Lake and the killing of a white ex- United States Senator upon the streets of Nashville. But to the telegraphic report; here it is: “Union City, Tenn., November 24, - The little town of Tiptonville, bordering on Reel Foot Lake, which has been the scene of many stirring incidents the past month, witnessed the lynching late today of three Negroes who were arrested this morning for murdering Special Deputy Sheriff Reichard Burriss and fatally wounding John Hall, a deputy sheriff. The negroes are Marshall, Edward, and John Steinbeck. These brothers created a disturbance at a religious meeting near Tiptonville, Saturday night, and when the two officers attempted to arrest them a fight ensued, the Negroes coming out victorious and made their escape.” This victory was short-lived as the following report will show: “It was barely daylight Sunday morning before a posse of citizens from Tiptonville and the surrounding country were in pursuit of the Negroes, but they effectually eluded them until 8 o'clock this morning, when they were captured in a little swamp near the village of Ridgeley. The vicinity is known as the old river bed canebrake, and it is difficult to trace man or beast through its tangle. The negroes were quickly landed in jail at Tiptonville. When arrested the Negroes had two guns in their possession, but had run out of ammunition. The news of their capture spread rapidly to the surrounding territory, and in addition the several hundred members of the posse began arriving by every road and soon the jail was surrounded by a mob which threatened a lynching quickly and surely. J.T. Burnett, a well-known lawyer, from the steps of the jail appealed to the mob, admonishing his heared not to do anything desperate and to the let the law take its course, at the same time promising that full justice would be done the three black men. This met with disapproval, and Mr. Burnett pleaded with the men that if they were determined to lynch the Negroes, to at least wait until night had fallen. Taylor Hall, a brother of the wounded deputy sheriff, said in effect that a postponement of the lynching would be satisfactory to him. It was soon seen, however, that it would be impossible to stem the tide of feeling of the mob…”

“Striking Black,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed March 21, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/760.