Talk:James Clark (lynching victim)

"...turned him over to a mob"?
The article here states: "He was arrested, but the chief of police turned him over to a mob."

However, that sentence the way it is written may be a little too concise according to a contemporary local news story:

An article about the murder appeared in the Tuesday, July 13, 1926 edition of the Cocoa Tribune newspaper.

“It is said that the negro had been arrested Sunday for an attempted attack on a white girl of Eau Gallie, and that he was on his way, about 7:00 o’clock that evening, with the chief of police to Titusville for safe keeping, when the officer was over-powered by masked men,” the article states."

But:

""Word quickly spread that a lynching was planned, so Clark was to be moved to Titusville to await trial. Rossetter was standing in front of the pool hall, across the street from the alley leading to the jail.

“I saw the chief of police come out of the alley in the car, and the colored man was in the car,” Rossetter said.

Ten men ran out of the pool hall and jumped into two cars, chasing the police car. Half an hour later, the sheriff returned to town without his prisoner.

“He said he was held up, and they took his gun away from him and they took the colored man away from him, so he just came on back to town,” said Rossetter. “Of course, the next day he had his gun back on.”"

It is simply not clear if the police chief (Fraser?) was in on it, or if he was persuaded to hand over the prisoner. Personally, I'd go with him being in on it, but there again, there are two different versions to this story, and only one is presented in the WP article. RRskaReb talk 14:23, 9 July 2021 (UTC)