The Conviction of Brown
January 26, 1895
Summary
An argument against the wrongful conviction of a black man.
Transcription
The Conviction of Brown
Barring the cases where innocent men were convicted of crimes, the case of Richard Brown, colored charged with securing under threats $2 which Charles H. Page, his white employer unlawfully with-held will stand without a parallel in the criminal annals of this state. It should not be forgotten that page was fined $2. in the Police Court of this city for not having a license upon his [Page’s] cart which Brown drove.
Page deducts the $2.00 from Brown’s wages without the latter’s consent, and upon his demanding all of his money, threatening bodily injury unless he paid him, he gave him the $2, and then had Brown arrested for securing money from the person under threat.
Brown was tried in the Hustings Court of Richmond, January 12th, and a jury convicted him, ascertaining his punishment at five years in the penitentiary. On the Monday following Judge S. B. Witt set aside the verdict. But the now thoroughly apprehensive counsel, fearful of a jury of this sort came into court and pleaded guilty to simple “assault and battery” and Brown was given one year in jail.
Mark you, Brown did not strike Page. He threatened to do it. The reader will wonder how then he could be guilty of assault and battery.
Brown is now in jail serving out the sentence for having demanded his own money from the man who unlawfully with held it.
There is not a shadow of an excuse for the conviction of this man. A nominal fine would have been all that was necessary, and we cannot even see where there would have been any equity in assessing that. Chas. H. Page caused him to do as he did by unlawfully with-holding money. He had no more right to do it than has a store-keeper to keep from the customer his change.
There is not a person with a spark of manhood within him, but what would not threaten a man under the circumstances, and if he did not give him his money, the law would consider him justified in his action.
We claim that Brown while doing an unlawful act was justified in the premises inasmuch as Page Had no right under the law to take and keep money which did not belong to him.
Page caused the trouble, for if he had been a law-abiding citizen and appealed to the law for redress the action of Brown would not have been noted. But Charles H. Page knew he had no case in Court so far as the collection of the $2 from Brown was concerned. He knew that he could not make Brown pay for a fine imposed upon Charles H. Page, and so he proceeded to do unlawfully [illegible] he could not accomplish by due process of law.
[Illegible]
Again, Page was far more able to lose the $2 than Brown, his over-worked employee. The paltry sum the latter received represented no doubt forty per cent of what he received for a week’s work. It did not represent hardly five per cent of what Page, the employer who buys coal and wood by the train-loads received. The one is transacting his business, careless of the world’s suffering; the other is in jail for twelve months because he demanded money to which he was justly and legally entitled. Here is a practical example of the treatment accorded us; he is a case in point where the law bears heavily upon the poor and humble and works a hardship upon a member of the down-trodden race.
Richard Brown is in the city jail. It is an outrage to keep him there.
The more the case is analyzed, the more shameful appears the act in punishing him for the exercise of a right which every citizen realizes he possesses. Lynch-law must go!
Barring the cases where innocent men were convicted of crimes, the case of Richard Brown, colored charged with securing under threats $2 which Charles H. Page, his white employer unlawfully with-held will stand without a parallel in the criminal annals of this state. It should not be forgotten that page was fined $2. in the Police Court of this city for not having a license upon his [Page’s] cart which Brown drove.
Page deducts the $2.00 from Brown’s wages without the latter’s consent, and upon his demanding all of his money, threatening bodily injury unless he paid him, he gave him the $2, and then had Brown arrested for securing money from the person under threat.
Brown was tried in the Hustings Court of Richmond, January 12th, and a jury convicted him, ascertaining his punishment at five years in the penitentiary. On the Monday following Judge S. B. Witt set aside the verdict. But the now thoroughly apprehensive counsel, fearful of a jury of this sort came into court and pleaded guilty to simple “assault and battery” and Brown was given one year in jail.
Mark you, Brown did not strike Page. He threatened to do it. The reader will wonder how then he could be guilty of assault and battery.
Brown is now in jail serving out the sentence for having demanded his own money from the man who unlawfully with held it.
There is not a shadow of an excuse for the conviction of this man. A nominal fine would have been all that was necessary, and we cannot even see where there would have been any equity in assessing that. Chas. H. Page caused him to do as he did by unlawfully with-holding money. He had no more right to do it than has a store-keeper to keep from the customer his change.
There is not a person with a spark of manhood within him, but what would not threaten a man under the circumstances, and if he did not give him his money, the law would consider him justified in his action.
We claim that Brown while doing an unlawful act was justified in the premises inasmuch as Page Had no right under the law to take and keep money which did not belong to him.
Page caused the trouble, for if he had been a law-abiding citizen and appealed to the law for redress the action of Brown would not have been noted. But Charles H. Page knew he had no case in Court so far as the collection of the $2 from Brown was concerned. He knew that he could not make Brown pay for a fine imposed upon Charles H. Page, and so he proceeded to do unlawfully [illegible] he could not accomplish by due process of law.
[Illegible]
Again, Page was far more able to lose the $2 than Brown, his over-worked employee. The paltry sum the latter received represented no doubt forty per cent of what he received for a week’s work. It did not represent hardly five per cent of what Page, the employer who buys coal and wood by the train-loads received. The one is transacting his business, careless of the world’s suffering; the other is in jail for twelve months because he demanded money to which he was justly and legally entitled. Here is a practical example of the treatment accorded us; he is a case in point where the law bears heavily upon the poor and humble and works a hardship upon a member of the down-trodden race.
Richard Brown is in the city jail. It is an outrage to keep him there.
The more the case is analyzed, the more shameful appears the act in punishing him for the exercise of a right which every citizen realizes he possesses. Lynch-law must go!
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Cord Fox
Citation
“The Conviction of Brown,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 18, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/93.