Colored Preacher Alfred Turner Killed

It started as a joke.  But eventually, because someone dared to fight back through the courts in 1877, preacher Alfred Turner was killed.

With the Ku Klux Act, passed just six years earlier in 1871, Congress authorized "President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)." [Source:  History.com] – Something to keep in mind when reading the following article.

Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
Wednesday, 25 April 1877 -- pg. 1 [via GenealogyBank]

OGLETHORPE OUTRAGES.

ONE MAN KILLED AND ANOTHER ONE WHIPPED.

The Crawford Riot – Regulators Again to the Front – Self-Constituted Judges and Juries – A Colored Preacher Killed – Another Colored Man Brutally Beaten – The Grand Jury Condemns the Lawlessness.

Some time since the CHRONICLE AND CONSTITUTIONALIST gave an account of a riot in the town of Crawford, Oglethorpe county, Georgia, in which the Town Marshal was wounded by a band of armed negroes.  Since that time there seems to have been a good deal of excitement in the county and we have to chronicle this morning two deeds of lawlessness which deserve the severest punishment.  The prime cause of all these disorders is to be found in a joke which someone practised [sic] upon a pestiferous colored man named Luke Johnson.  Johnson is a Republican politician of some prominence and like the white members of his party was anxious to be supported at the expense of the Government.  The object of his longings was the post office at Crawford, and after the inauguration of [President Rutherford B.] Hayes, some one sent him word that he had been appointed postmaster.  Regarding the announcement as true, Johnson called upon the postmaster and demanded possession of the office.  The demand, of course, was not complied with, and the nature of the sell was explained.  Johnson, however, found the report to chime so well with his aspirations that he refused to abandon his belief in its truth, but chose to imagine that his commission had been sent him through the mail, and that the postmaster refused to give it up.  Made angry by this thought, he began to indulge in incendiary language, and is even said to have contemplated taking possession of the office by force.  He commenced organizing the negroe [sic] for some purpose, and frequent mee[t]ings were held at night, to which his allies came armed.  Alarmed by these sinister demonstrations, the whites determined to watch Johnson and his band and find out what was going on.  While the last meeting was in session the Town Marshal and a volunteer posse went to the place and a riot ensued in which the negroes fired a volley at the whites and then fled.  In the melee the Marshal was shot, but not seriously wounded – though it was through no fault of the negroes that he was not killed.  This affair naturally caused great excitement in the country.  Johnson was arrested in Atlanta and brought back and a number of other colored men were put in jail charged with complicity in the affair.  In turn Johnson went before a United States Commissioner in Atlanta and had warrants issued against several citizens of the county charging them with a violation of what is known as the "Ku Klux Act." The white prisoners were taken to Atlanta and required to give a bond for their appearance for trial.  Of course all these things added fuel to the flames, and the result has been found in two barbarous and shocking crimes.  On the night of the 3d of April a crowd of disguised men went to the house of Alfred Turner, a colored Baptist preacher, on the plantation of Mrs. R. R. Mitchell, and took him out for the purpose of whipping him.  He got loose from them and ran off and was shot by the crowd, and shortly afterwards died.  The same crowd took out another colored man named Anthony Thurston, and whipped him with such severity that he was confined to his bed for three days.  No one seems to know who did these cruel and lawless deeds, or what motive impelled the lynchers to the commission of the crime, but there can be little doubt that Turner was murdered and Thurston beaten because of real or fancied connection with Johnson and his schemes.  No arrests were, or have been made.  When the Superior Court met last week the grand jury made the following presentment in relation to the matter:

"We cannot consistently conclude these presentments without expressing our condemnation of certain unlawful acts of violence recently committed in this county, of which we have received information, without sufficient evidence to identify the perpetrators.  We deplore such occurrences in our midst, and indignantly repel the intimations contained in certain newspaper articles of a late date, reflecting on the character of our county as an intelligent and law abiding people.  And we earnestly request every peaceful and order loving citizen to frown upon such lawlessness by whomsoever committed, and to assist the lawful authorities in bringing the perpetrators to speedy justice, thereby showing to every class of our citizens that every one SHALL BE SECURE in the exercise and enjoyment of every lawful right, without regard to social position."

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.