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Robert Henson Hillard (4 March 1869 – 29 October 1895, Tyler, Texas) – a Texas-born African American and first-generation post-Civil War descendant of slaves – was, at age 27, accused of rape and murder, the latter to which he reportedly confessed to a formalized lynch mob committee. Hillard was lynched in Tyler October 29, 1895. A mob chained him to an iron rail atop a scaffold on the west side of the town square and brutally tortured him by burning him alive – deliberately prolonging his life, stretching it out to 50 minutes of burning in a spectacle lynching of reportedly 7,000 to 12,000 onlookers that included white civic leaders, civil servants, law officers, judges, dignitaries, even African Americans, families with children, out-of-town newspaper reporters, and photographers.

The dichotomy of public sentiment over lynching – more specifically, lynching that included extreme torture – was, during 1890s, well-chronicled. At one extreme, in support, there was populist-like sense of righteousness akin to those harbored by citizens of Tyler, the region, and several newspaper publishers throughout the country. At the other extreme, there were deeply-entrenched, influential anti-lynching exponents throughout the country who expressed outrage – likening lyching, especially torturous lynching, to lawless, amoral, perverse barbarianism. The subheadlines of an article in The San Francisco Examiner encapsulated the opposing views: Tyler Lynchers Show No Regret Proud of the Fearful Torture Inflicted by Them on the Wretch Hilliard They Even Paused to Permit Their Pictures to Be Taken Before Applying the Torch Not a Word of Protest Uttered The Local Paper Resents the Term 'Mob,' as Applied to Its Best Citizens by Some Commentators Unlike most lynchings, the lynching – from a perspective of local citizens – was formalized with a sort of ad hoc speedy trial, organized by two ex judges.

Catch-22
According to a transcript of an alleged confession that Hillard made to a make-shift inquisition committee, Hillard stated, "I met the lady that was murdered right in the road when I was coming along the road. She must have been scared and she commenced screaming and hallooing. I told her, 'Lady, I am not going to do you any harm.' I knew that if she went and told that I interfered with her I would be murdered; that was the reason for the crime."

Hillard, when he had crossed paths with Rebecca Bell, with no witnesses, had unwittingly walked into in a black-man's catch-22 dilemma – a deadly predicament: either face the certainty of being lynched for being accused of "outraging" a White woman or kill the women and try to escape, knowing that, if caught, lynching was assured. In modern times, Hillard might have had better options if he had recorded the incident on an iPhone.

Prevalence of lynching African American men accused of raping White women
The lynching of African American men who were suspected of "outraging" (raping) white women was prevalent in the South.

Civil rights commentary
Civil rights activist Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) published an editorial May 21, 1892, in a Memphis newspaper, The Free Speech and Headlight, a paper that she co-owned, refuting what she called
 * "that old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern men are not careful, a conclusion might be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women."

Four days later, on May 15, The Daily Commercial, published
 * "The fact that a black scoundrel [Ida B. Wells] is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of Southern Whites. But we've had enough of it.

The Evening Scimitar (Memphis) copied The Daily Commercial's story the same day, but added,


 * "Patience under such circumstances is not a virtue. If the Negroes themselves do no apply the remedy without delay it will be the duty of those whom he has attacked to tie the wretch who utters these calumnies to a stake at the intersection of Main and Madison Sts., brand him in the forehead with a hot iron and perform upon him a surgical operation with a pair of tailor's shears."

The paper was founded in 1889 by Reverend Taylor Nightingale (1844–1922), onetime pastor of the Beale Street Baptist Church.

Aftermath of Wells' editorial

James L. Fleming, half owner of The Free Speech, and business managers had to leave town. Side note: Fleming, in the 1880s, had established himself as a civil rights advocate. In one instance, he wrote a letter the Daily Arkansas Gazette, to the attention of Arthur Murray, the editor, dated October 1, published October 6, 1885, opposing an article published September 26 by Mr. Murray suggesting that "colored people should emigrate to Africa."






 * Marshall M. Murray, representing Lafayette County, was a member of the House of Representatives during Arkansas' 24$th$ General Assembly, from January 8 to March 28, 1883. He was African American and a teacher at Wiley University. Murray, in 1902, circulated petitions in support of pensions for ex-slaves.

After publishing that article, Wells' newspaper office was burned to the ground. Wells had been out of town, vacationing in New York; but never she returned to Memphis. For the next three years, Wells remained a guest of Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856–1928) and his wife, Carrie C. Smiley (né Caroline Charlotte Smiley; maiden;'' 1860–1940).

A committee from the Exchange located Rev. Nightingale – who no longer was an owner – and assaulted him and forced him at gun point to sign a letter retracting the May 21 editorial.

Racist definition of rape
With the Southern white man, any mesalliance existing between a white woman and a colored man is a sufficient foundation for the charge of rape. The Southern white man says that it is impossible for a voluntary alliance to exist between a white woman and a colored man, and there fore, the fact of an alliance is a proof of force. (Record)

The "Weak Race" and the Winchester: Political Voices in the Pamphlets of Ida B. Wells- Barnett Author(s): Simone W. Davis Source: Legacy, 1995, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1995), pp. 77-97 Published by: University of Nebraska Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25679164

Impetus for Well's assertions about rape
Wells, essentially, was saying, in cases where Black men were accused of raping White women, that the women were "White Delilahs" (racist femme fatales), her way of describing White women who were not innocent victims of rape, but rather, co-conspirators with male White supremacists. (re: Mrs. Underwood).


 * Real story, published in the Cleveland Gazette, January 16, 1892: "Julia Underwood," a White woman whose Black lover, William Offet, was imprisoned in 1888 for 4 years – released January 4, 1892, and given a pardon by the Ohio Governor. Underwood was the wife of a preacher and her words, against those of a Black man, were taken as absolute truth. It was Rev. Underwood who, thru Pittsburgh Attorney Thomas Harlan Baird Patterson (1844–1907) petition for Offet's release and pardon.

Wells, borrowing from Longfellow, adopted the phrase "poor, blind Afro-American Sampsons," to denote black men as victims of "White Delilahs." "Sampson," in the vernacular of the day, came from Longfellow, who in 1865, wrote, "There is a poor, blind Sampson in the land ...." To explain the term "Sampson," John Elliott Cairnes, an Irish political economist, wrote that Longfellow was prophesizing that, in a long-impending struggle for Americans following the Civil War, he could see in the Negro only an instrument of vengeance, and a cause of ruin. Wells was basically pointing out that Black men, in the presence of White women, were often automatically perceived as devious.

In 1893, Emanuel K. Love, a prominent Baptist clergyman – a minister in Savannah, Georgia, discussed lynchings, charges of rape, and mob violence against African Americans in the South. He advocated equality for all before the law and the courts but advises blacks to be especially obedient to the laws so as to dispel southern whites' suspicions of any wrongdoing.


 * In a 49-year retrospect, a White North Carolina newspaperman, W. J. Cash, in his 1941 book, The Mind of the South, bluntly wrote that a white woman had about as much chance of being struck by lightening as she did of being raped by a black man.


 * "Horrible But True,", by Cleveland Gazette, January 16, 1892 (accessible via the Ohio Historical Society)


 * (no title), Weekly Law Bulletin and the Ohio Law Journal, Vol 14, November 17, 1890, pps. 394–395


 * The Mind of the South, by Wilbur Joseph Cash, Vintage Books (1941, 1968, 1991), p. 117; ISBN 9780679736479


 * Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch, Walter Francis White (1929) (2001 reprint, Notre Dame Press)


 * "A Sermon on Lynch Law and Raping" (sermon), Emanuel King Love (1850–1900), First African Baptist Church, Savannah (1893);


 * Black Sexual Politics (link to Chapter 7), by Patricia Hill Collins, Routledge (2004);


 * Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, by Jeremy Schipper, PhD, and Nyasha Junior, PhD, Oxford University Press (2020), pps. 20–21;


 * "The Negro Suffrage," by Professor Cairnes, Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 68, August 1865, p. 343


 * Two: She believed that the lack of valuing a Black man's life over a White woman who expressed was outrageous.


 * Two: She believed that

A black man, crossing paths with a white woman, both alone, was gravely dangerous for both. The charge that black men raped and killed white women was a fallacy with fatal consequences.


 * The gruesomeness of the murder seemed to eclipse or obfuscate or justify the gruesomeness of the lynching. And, except for harsh protests by the likes of Ida B. Wells – over a sort of Karen effect (not to conflate Karen's overblown global response to the gravity of Hillard's murder, but to suggest that Hillard might have had better options if he had had an iPhone), postmortem sentiment was largely dismissive towards the lynching itself – or rather an attitude of "he had it coming."


 * The Examiner stated that its condemnation "did not spring from sympathy from the [lynching] victim."

Reported sequence of events in the 24 hours following the murder of Rebecca Bell
Hillard, who lived near Kilgore in Gregg County, was accused of rape and a horrific murder of 23-year-old Rebecca Bell (née Rebecca Kinsey; 1872–1895), wife of Leonard Bell (1870–1900). Bell's body was found on a road, about 4 miles (6.44 km) east of Tyler. Bell, reportedly, had been walking home, alone, after visiting her mother, Juliette Kinsey (née Juliette Browning; 1850–1936), widow of Virgil Amos Kinsey (1850–1892) who lived a short distance away. According to reported accounts of Hillard's alleged testimony from an alleged inquisition, he allegedly denied raping Bell, but allegedly confessed to murdering her. It had been determined that Mrs. Bell was murdered around 5:00, Monday, October 28, 1895, after which, within about 24 hours, Hillard had been executed by a mob in a large-scale spectator lynching. During that 24-hour period:

 William F. Warren, MD (1868–1944), African American, who resided in the neighborhood, was the first to discover the Rebecca Bell's body, around 5:00 pm, October 28, as he was returning from bird hunting. The body was carried to the dwelling of John Charles Smith, MD (1870–1955):
 * West of the place, where the Bell's was found, was the dwelling of Bell's brother-in-law, Lewis H. Bell (1853–1959) – abouit 350 yards from the scene of the murder

 News of the murder reached Tyler at 7:30, October 28  An inquest was held between 9 and 10, October 28  Bloodhounds from the Texas State penitentiary in Rusk, Texas (current site of the Texas Department of State Health Services) – via special Cotton Belt train, furnished by a special engine, courtesy of Job A. Edson (né Job Adolphus Edson; 1854–1928), General Superintendent of the entire Cotton Belt Railway System, which was given a clear right-of-way by Andrew Barr Liggett (1852–1909), Superintendent of Transportation of the Cotton Belt – were brought to Tyler, arriving at the crime scene at 1:35, October 29. Rusk is about 45 miles (ca. 72 kilometers) south by east (SbE) of Tyler.

 A search party captured Hillard around 4:00, October 29, 3 miles (4.83 km) from Paris, sleeping in one of Wash Hilburn's (né Washington J. Hillburn; 1851–1917) cotton pens. Credit for the capture was initially given to he Gregg County Sheriff J.C. Howard (né Jackson Connor Howard; 1848–1922). But newspapers later reported that:

 Smith County Deputy Sheriff T.S. Tarbutton (né Theophilus Sidney Tarbutton; 1865–1915) captured him.  William A. Harris (né William Asher Harris; 1876–1938) and  George E. Harris (né George Edward Harris; 1872–1953), employees of the Cotton Belt Railway, assisted in the capture.  Cal McCane, an African American, was the bloodhound handler that led to the capture.


 * Others receiving congratulatory telegrams for helping in the capture included:

 F.S. Mansfield  Jim Lavender  Burr Finnell

 after his capture, Hillard was formally arrested by Smith County Deputy Sheriff Wig Smith (né Stuart Wiggins Smith; 1867–1930), son of Smith County Sheriff, John P. Smith (né John Pollock Smith; 1838–1906), who, in turn held Hillard in his custody.  who then allegedly surrendered Hillard to a mob of 200 armed men, <li> 6:00, October 29: (13 hours later): John P. Smith, Smith County Sheriff, telegrams the Governor, informing him that a mob of 1000 armed men took his prisoner. <li> then an inquisition committee was formed. It was organized by John Martin Duncan (1851–1917), an attorney and former Smith County Judge. The committee was composed of M.A. Long (né Medicus Austin Long; 1853–1913) and others from the community where Mrs. had resided. Judge Duncan interviewed the witnesses for the committee. The committee allegedly identified and examined Hillard and determined his guilt, based partly on an alleged confession by Hillard, <li> Witnesses alledgedly provided testimony to Judge Duncan as corroborating or circumstantial evidence that alledgedly placed Hillard in the vicinity of the crime

Scene of the murder: about a half mile from the victim's house; the victim's mother's house was about a half mile east of where the victims body was found; the victim had been walking from her mother's house to her house.


 * Note: Rebecca's mother's house was situated on a tract 146 acre tract, of which 108 were in the John D. Parchman Survey No. 755, Abstract 741 (Nacogdoches District, 3rd Class Patent No. 758) and 32 acres were in the Stillwell Box Survey No. 842, Abstract 169 (Nacogdoches District, Donation Patent No. 315 for serving in the Battle of San Jacinto). The land is near the border of the Sabine and Neches River Basins.

Man who saw Hillard at his house the day before the murder: <li> H.B. Collins, African American</ol> Man who saw Hillard the night before at the Harris Creek Bridge, about 1-1/2 miles from the scene of the murder: <li> Tom Choice (né Thomas Choice; 1869–1945), African American</ol> Man who saw Hillard on the road immediately before the murder, 2 miles from the scene: <li> Price Hicks (né James Price Hix; 1862–1951), white</ol> Women Hillard saw on the road immediately after the murder: <li> Easter Jones, African American <li> Mary Jane Jones <li> Rubin Choice, according to testimony, said that Hillard told him that he was going to his aunt's house in Kilgore</ol></ol>

<li> News dispatches initially identified Robert Henson Hillard under two other names, "Henry Hillard" and "Jim King," the former by newspapers that included The Fort Worth Daily Gazette, The Daily Hesperian (Gainesville, Texas), and San Antonio's El Regidor, and the latter by newspapers that included The Dallas Morning News, the Galveston Daily News, the McKinney Democrat (McKinney, Texas) the Evening Messenger (Marshall, Texas) and the Wills Point Chronicle (Wills Point, Texas). <li> an execution scaffold had been erected in the west side of the Tyler town square, bounded by Spring, Ferguson, College, and Erwin Streets – the west side being the location of the current Smith County Courthouse, built in 1909. <li> The mob started for the scene of the murder, where they arrived at 3. <li> The mob marched with Hillard towards Tyler, and at 4, the head of the line entered Main Street where no less than 7,000 people were assembled <li> makeshift grandstand-like accommodations had been set up, <li> Large crowds of spectators, including ladies and children, had assembled in and around the Tyler town square – many arriving from nearby towns via special trains – congregated on the awnings surrounding the public plaza. Wagons, carriages, trees, and buildings were converted into grandstands and were thronged by 4:30. <li> coal-oil, kindling wood, straw, and other combustible materials had been stockpiled <li> Hillard was dragged from the jail where he had been confined and was tied to a stake and forced to wait while his people piled wood around his legs halfway up to his waist. As the spectators watched, many insisted in adding wood to build the pile up to Hillard's limbs. While building the wood pile around Hillard, the crowd tormented him in a variety of ways, using him as a target for all kinds of missiles, and mercilessly torturing him by pinching his ear and striking him repeated blows in the face. <li> Sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 pm October 19, Leonard Bell, widower of Mrs. Bell, ignited the pyre. When the flames grew from the shavings under the woodpile, Hillard reportedly cried for mercy, which was dreadful for the spectators to bear. He pleaded and begged for the quick death of a pistol bullet, and the crowd only guyed him. For fifteen minutes his screams were heard before death finally ended his sufferings. <li> October 29, 1895, 6 : The first telegram received by Governor Culbertson from the Smith County Sheriff was received at 6 On the evening of October 30, Sheriff Smith received the following telegram from Governor Culbertson:


 * "Your telegram stating that a prisoner had been taken from you and another athat he had been burned on the public square of the city, and asking what you should do, were received at short intervals. It was your duty to protect the prisoner at whatever cost.  Why did you not do so? Having failed in this the affair is so violative of all law that nothing should now deter you from the performance of your duty to promptly present all parties engaged in the burning to the proper examination court of the Grand Jury."
 * " In this you should not hesitate or falter, and if any aid is needed from me in the discharge of your duty it will be gtiven to the limit of my authority. The crime of the prisoner, if guilty is the most revolting known to us, but the law provides adequate punishment and a safe and orderly method of determining guilt."

</ol>

Known lynching witnesses

 * J.R. Stevens (né John Randolph Stevens; 1861–1954), son of Judge John Walker Stevens (1832–1919) of Hill County, Texas, a Methodist preacher and former Confederate soldier.

Smith County maps

 * Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Tyler, Smith County, Texas, (Image 1), Sanborn Map Company (1898)
 * Hermann Willke (born 1822), General Land Office, State of Texas (July 1855);
 * "Smith County" (Texas map), Copyright 1880, William C. Walsh (1936–1924), Commissioner of the General Land Office, State of Texas;
 * Woldert's Map of Smith County, Texas (1905)
 * Tyler Historical markers
 * The population of Smith County, in 1895, was 30,000, of which, more than half were African Americans.

Aftermath

 * yet claims that telegrams from the Smith County Sheriff to Governor Culbertson seeking advice were delayed.


 * Governor Culberson ordered the Smith County Sheriff, John P. Smith ( John Pollock Smith; 1838–1906), to arrest of those involved, but no arrest were ever made. The Governor also said that the Sheriff should have protected the prisoner. Tyler, at the time, was the hometown of then former U.S. Senator Horace Chilton and then former Governor Jim Hogg.
 * (Reworded) October 30, 1895: Texas Governor Culberson directed Sheriff Smith to "present all persons engaged in this homicide [the lynchers] to the proper examining court and the grand jury."


 * Action reportedly commended by citizens of nearby Paris, who – two earlier – lynched Henry Smith (1876–1893) The Smith lynching also involved (i) law officers surrendering the prisoner to a mob and (ii) torturous spectacle lynching by being burned at the stake in a public square with thousands of onlookers.
 * Following morning – Barnum and Baily Circus
 * Fix quoted material
 * The Barnum & Baily Circus arrived in Tyler the next day, and every participant was ushered to the dark spot on the west side of the public plaza. The circus troupe was later hard-pressed to perform anything as compelling as the slow roast of Henry Hillard the night before.


 * When African Americans were questioned regarding the manner of Hillard's execution, they reportedly endorsed it, but there was no other way they could safely respond. The prevailing white sentiment regarding Hillard's fate was conveyed in the November 1 edition of the Fort Worth Daily Gazette:

Legacy

 * The lynching marked the sixth of eight documented lynchings in Tyler.


 * The National Memorial for Peace and Justice features a memorial with 805 hanging steel rectangles, representing each of the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place. Smith County, Texas, is included.


 * Efforts to curb illegal lynching and centralize the administration of the death penalty marked the 1819-1923 period. Watershed legislation in 1923 accomplished those goals.
 * In 1923, Texas State Senator John William Thomas (1884–1971) – representing Bell, Bosque, Coryell, and Hamilton Counties – introduced a bill to reform Texas executions. Thomas won his seat by advocating such reform in the aftermath of an incident in which Americans accused of a crime were literally "burned at the stake." Senate Bill 63 (38th Legislature, 2nd Session), motivated by the desire for more modern, humane, set executions, abandoned the hangman's rope in favor of the electric chair and removed all executions from the "emotional atmosphere" found in local communities to the remote prison location of Huntsville. Though it aspired to make the death penalty regime more humane, the Act nevertheless provided:


 * The NAACP, founded in 1909, expanded its anti-lynching campaign in 1916 through Elisabeth Freeman following of Lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, May 15, 1916.


 * In 1918, the Texas Legislature enacted a law that permitted women to vote in primary elections. In May 1819, a referendum to amend the Texas Constitution to grant full suffrage to women. On June 28, 1919, the Texas Legislature ratified the Susan B. Anthony Amendment (Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), making Texas the ninth state to do so. In October the Texas Equal Suffrage Association held a "victory convention." Their mission achieved, its members voted to dissolve and convert the organization into the League of Women Voters of Texas, effective October 10, 1919. Jessie Daniel Ames, an influential anti-lynching movement leader, was the league's first president. Ames, in 1930, became the founding president of Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching in Atlanta.

Pro-lynching and pro-torture sentiment
Lynching, according to proponents, was an attempt to expedite perceived justice for a crime. Lynching advocates believed that it served as a deterrent. Lynching also was an outgrowth of distrust in lengthy procedural due process for criminal procedure. Torture, proponents believed, was the closest remedy for retribution of a crime, particularly for surviving victims and their families. However, the psychological scars to those families, for generations, endures. The psychological scares to the community also endures. The long-term duress on a community can be a demoralizing legacy the confronts future generations in search of its soul. The population of Tyler in 1895 was about 30,000; which, statistically, suggests that many current old-line Tyler families had ancestors who witnessed the event. Members of the lynch mob have remained nameless for generations.

Duncan and Beaird defend their involvement
Their views.

Mixed opinions about due process and torture
Whether critical or empathetic, many newspaper editorials commenting on the Tyler lynching opined that many lynchings an outgrowth of public distrust of criminal procedure and an intolerance of slow trials (compare: speedy trial; also, see: U.S. Speedy Trial Clause), especially in cases of rape and murder, replete with perceived legal trickery built on perceived esoteric or immaterial technicalities.

The New Orleans Times Democrat published an editorial, opposing the inhumane torture commuted in Tyler, but, aside from that, found lynching acceptable in cases where African Americans assaulted white women; to wit:
 * "The slow burning at the stake in Tyler was one of those inhumane acts to which a community is sometimes driven under the pressure of impassioned excitement, but which are none the less discrediting and degrading to, and unworthy of, the people who are driven to commit them. Lynching is quite sufficient in itself for negros' assaults on white women ;" ...

Due process disparity for blacks and whites examined
A month and 20 days after Hillard had been lynched, an editorial in the Brenham Daily Banner, reflecting partly on the lynching, pointed out that, in a case of alleged attempted rape of Emma Kess (1878–1965) of Sandy Hill (eight miles northeast of Brenham), the suspect, Julius Heinrich Schroeder (1864–1912) – who was white, married, and also from Sandy Hill – was released on $500 bond, considered a nominal bail amount. The article posited that a black suspect would most likely have been lynched. In the March 1896 term of District Court, Schroeder pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of criminal assault and sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude. He was pardoned around February 4, 1898, having served only a year and a half.

Plessy v. Ferguson
"From 1889 to 1899, lynchings in the South averaged 187.5 per year."


 * Ref: "Homer Plessy and Jim Crow," by Melvin Irving Urofsky, PhD, Encyclopædia Britannica (, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 August 2019

The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the U.S. Supreme Court led to widespread segregation through the establishment of Southern laws and social customs known as "Jim Crow."

Murder victim, Rebecca Bell

 * Between 4:30 and 5:00 (about 5:30  per Dallas Morning News): Murder: The murder of Rebecca Bell was ascertained to have occurred between 4:30 and 5:00, October 28, 1895. At the time of Bell's death, she (i) had been married to Leonard , (ii) was reportedly three-months pregnant, and (iii) had a son aged , Joel Amos Bell (1894–1992). The qualification "alleged murderer" is used, here, because Hillard was not given a trial in a Texas court of law. According to newspaper accounts, Hillard denied raping Bell; but, allegedly confessed to the murder – described as a gruesome murder. According to accounts of Hillard's confession, Bell began yelling "hysterically" that he had raped her when the two passed each other alone on a road, and he sensed that he would be lynched solely for the accusation.

Bell's maternal grandfather, Isaiah Nicholas Browning (1827–1915) was a settler for whom the unincorporated community, Browning, was named.

Leonard and Rebecca Bell lived on a farm 4 miles (6.44 km) due east of Tyler on what then was known as the Tyler Longview Road.

Background
On charges of brutal assault and murder of Mrs. Rebecca Bell (née Rebecca Kinsey; 1872–1895), wife of Leonard Bell (1870–1900), Hillard was ''' captured October 29, 1895???? '''


 * Hillard was found 3 miles (4.83 km) from Paris. Soon after he was handcuffed, a mob of some 200 men, heavily armed, arrived on the scene and demanded an immediate surrender of the prisoner, which was reportedly reluctantly given. The mob started for the scene of the murder, where they arrived at 3 . A crowd continued to gather there until nearly 2,000 citizens from Tyler and vicinity were there. Witnesses were questioned. Then an officer appeared followed by 300 determined and well-armed men. When near the scene, the officers were overpowered and disarmed. Hillard was then brought before a committee. He reportedly made a full confession that he assaulted Mrs. Bell and then cut her throat. Then a vote was cast to determine a mode of punishment. It was unanimously agreed to burn Hillard alive and that he should suffer the penalty on Tyler's public square. The mob marched with Hillard towards Tyler, and at 4, the head of the line entered Main Street where no less than 7,000 people were assembled. A scaffold was erected and Hillard was burned in the presence of thousands.


 * Henry Hillard at Find a Grave


 * See Dallas Morning News account


 * Facebook


 * Facebook

Unusual apparent facts

 * The event was not clandestine. It was widely chronicled and witnessed in broad daylight by thousands.
 * Two judges, by name, and members of the Texas bar, presided over the illegal proceedings.
 * Except for the black press, few newspaper accounts seemed critical of the torturous death penalty and seemed to accept the verdict, despite a complete absence attorney representation and due process


 * "In murder cases, the claim that an African American killed a white to avoid being attacked rarely proved persuasive to all-white juries."


 * See: Texas Lynch Law, enacted around 1830??

Questions

 * Due process
 * Cruel and unusual punishment
 * Violation of Texas Law
 * Racism

Federal law

 * United States Bill of Rights, ratified December 15, 1791
 * Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, right to a fair trial
 * Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibits the Federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments.


 * Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, one of three Reconstruction Amendments, adopted July 9, 1868 (exactly months after the end of the Civil War), among other things, extended the right of due process to all states (for all citizens).
 * Incorporation Doctrine is a Constitutional doctrine that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the States under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prior to the Doctrine (and the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted July 9, 1868), the Bill of Rights applied only to the Federal Government and to Federal Court cases. After passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court favored a process called "selective incorporation," under which, the Supreme Court would incorporate certain parts of Amendments One thru Ten. The Sixth Amendment was fully incorporated, except for the right to a jury. The Sixth Amendment was fully incorporated.

State laws broken

 * Article I (the Texas Bill of Rights), Section 13 of the Texas Constitution, adopted February 15, 1876 – Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishment inflicted. All courts shall be open, and every person for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law. (link)

State law

 * In 1923, when public lynchings receded, the Texas state legislature passed laws mandating that public executions be moved to Huntsville penitentiary; that electrocutions be carried out instead, beginning in February 1924.

"Statement of the prisoner" (excerpt)

 * "I met the lady that was murdered right in the road when I was coming along the road; she must have been scared, and she commenced screaming and hallooing. I told her, 'Lady, I am not going to do you any harm.' I knew that if she went and told that I interfered with her I would be murdered; that was the reason for the crime."


 * Hillard's fear that he would be murdered if a white woman accused him of assault – was a perceived entitlement harbored by many whites, including those in (i) law enforcement, (i) public policy, and (iii) news media.


 * As a law enforcement example, Smith County Sheriff John P. Smith reportedly did not follow the law when he surrendered his prisoner, Hillard, to the mob. Nor did he later attempt to arrest those who took his prisoner and carried out the lynching, even when ordered to do so by Governor Culbertson. Judge Duncan, who spearheaded the inquisition fully knew that Hillard's fate would be determined by proceedings structured by him. Duncan later, reportedly, expressed regret that Hillard was burned alive. But, Duncan was a member of the Texas bar – knowledgeable of Federal and State laws. He understood that conducting an inquisition outside a court violated U.S. and State laws. He also understood that the inquisition would establish a verdict with a sentence that would be carried out by a mob.


 * Another law enforcement example: The population of Smith County in 1895 was about 30,000, of which, more than half were black. Put another way, less than 15,000 were white. Considering that Texas county law enforcement officials and county judges in Texas are elected officials, the likelihood that Sheriff Smith had no choice but to surrender his prisoner, Hillard, to the mob, seems nefarious. And, given that the people of Tyler and Smith County were not transient, but rather, mostly long-standing residents – replete with interlinked family linage and intermarriages, the likelihood of Smith, and all other elected officials involved in the lynching, feeling threatened by upholding his duty to protect the prisoner from the mob is unlikely. The complicity of Sheriff Smith might be seen as collusion. The unwillingness to uphold the law is further exhibited when Sheriff Smith failed to arrest ringleaders of the mob when ordered to do so by the Governor.


 * As a public policy example, in 1897, when the Texas Legislature passed H.B. 30, placing more stringent laws against lynching, one of the nine nays came from


 * As a news media example, the New Orleans Times Democrat, nationally prominent in the era, published an editorial opposing the inhumane torture of Hillard, but, in the same editorial, endorsed lynching in cases of blacks assaulting white women; to wit:
 * "The slow burning at the stake in Tyler was one of those inhumane acts to which a community is sometimes driven under the pressure of impassioned excitement, but which are none the less discrediting and degrading to, and unworthy of, the people who are driven to commit them. Lynching is quite sufficient in itself for negros' assaults on white women ;" ...

Witnesses named in the press
The names of seven African American women and one white man and one African American man were given to newspapers as witnesses:


 * Easter Jones, African American
 * Mary Jane Jones, African American
 * Price Hicks (né James Price Hix; 1862–1951), white
 * Tom Choice (né Thomas Choice; 1869–1945), African American
 * H. B. Collins, African American
 * Rubin Choice
 * Harris Creek Bridge (on Thunderstruck Road?, currently Farm Road 1252), about one and a half miles from the scene of the murder

Criticism of a 1897 narrative

 * Quote
 * African American "characters" (other than the victim) that appear in the lynching narratives are relegated to incongruous bit parts, which authenticate their tacit submission to white domination. The lynching narrative's discursive project to naturalize the limitlessness of white of white supremacy and black inferiority. Moreover, because its authors decode civil behavior and black cultural politics (where it is visible to them) from an etic or outsider's perspective, they cannot possibly perceive blacks' participation in civil defense as an assertion of agency or as a cultural priority – a fact the narrative, if read from an alternative perspective, inadvertently records.


 * The discursive strategy for establishing lynch law's racial roles and protocols is best portrayed, perhaps, in A Book of Crime and Its Consequences, What the Negro, Robert Henson Hilliard, Did, and Why He Was Burned Alive at Tyler, Texas. This nineteenth-century lynching narrative features the exploits of an interracial lynch mob. The narrative comprises a sizeable cast of cooperative colored people, who are "actors" in the drama (with speaking parts) rather than as spectators, who, in other narratives, either silently observe the ensuing carnage from the margins or are absent altogether.  This anti-lynching apologia proves the wickedness of lynching by noting that local blacks are said to demand and facilitate the lynching of "one of their own kind" for the good of the order.  A close reading of the text will show that blacks' recorded accommodation of lynch law may likely be evidence of their signifying, using subversive discursive strategies to affirm their subjectivity and to override hegemonic memes signaling their powerlessness and submission to racial tyranny.


 * The narrative's fabula contends a "colored physician" sounds the alarm after finding the badly butchered body of Mrs. Leonard Bill, a young, pregnant, white mother on a public road; Cal McCane, a Negro, handles the bloodhounds that are dispatched to track the Negro criminal. The coroner sends (another) old Negro woman to discretely examine the extent and nature of the dead woman's injuries and miscellaneous local blacks provide the mob with vital details that lead to the culprit's identification, capture, and murder. Notably, the demand to lynch the Negro felon issues from the most unlikely source – a black woman.  Since only white females were understood to be "women," the narrative strips her of gender, identifying her simply as "an old darkey." She appears to concur that racial allegiance has no place in the execution of justice, insisting (in broken English) that the evildoer "be burnt alibe." However, she may be signifying when she later qualifies, "dat [burning] will be too good for de scou'drel, don' cor wheder he be white or black" (p. 18). An emic reading of this text suggests that she is really stating that no criminal should be burned at the stake.  However, racial politics holds that any assertion she may make be ignored or opposed simply because it came from her – and old, black woman.  Thus, this speech act indicates her efforts to eliminate the threat of immolation once the fugitive is captured. Ultimately, hover, the mob burns the alleged criminal at the stake in spite of the fact that an 'old darkey" has suggested it rather that because of it.

Photos

 * "Series of Fifteen Stereographs Relating to the Murder of a Woman in Tyler, Texas," C.A. Davis, photographer, © 4 February 1897, Breckenridge & Scruggs, Tyler, Texas
 * C.A. Davis of George C. Irons (né George Charles Irons; 1864–1941) Studio, 209 North College Street, Tyler
 * Copies archived at the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Call No.: Lot 11782
 * Stereograph No. 1: "Waiting for His Victim" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 2: "The Assault" (aka "The Attack") (dramatized)
 * Stereograph No. 3: "The Struggle" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 4: "Cutting Her Throat" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 5: "The Body as Found" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 6: "Washing Himself" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 7: "In the Hands of the Mob" (actual) (image)
 * Stereograph No. 8: "After the Trial" (actual)
 * Stereograph No. 9: "Building the Scaffold" (actual)
 * Stereograph No. 10: "Praying on the Scaffold" (actual)
 * Stereograph No. 11: "Binding to the Stake" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 12: "The Torch Applied" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 13: "First Fire Withdrawn," C.A. Davis, photographer, October 29, 1895 (image)
 * Stereograph No. 14: "Ruins Next Morning" (staged)
 * Stereograph No. 15: "Dogs Afraid of the Trail" (staged)


 * George C. Irons
 * Date Range: 1892- 1897(?)
 * Location: Tyler
 * Studio: Eureka Gallery (see Irons; also Edward Wellington Mims; 1873–1945)
 * Notes: also Eureka Gallery, about 1895-1900 known as “the Fruit Palace Photographer”


 * The Stereographs were a variation of lynching postcards.


 * Later, Breckinridge-Scruggs Co. made a profit selling pictures and postcards of the event. They wrote in their advertisements, “We have sixteen large views under powerful magnifying lenses now on exhibition. These views are true to life and show the Negro's attack, the scuffle, the murder, the body as found, etc. With eight views of the trial and burning. For place of exhibit see street bills. Don’t fail to see this.”


 * Quoted from a review
 * ''Lynchings were public, celebratory events that drew white men, women, and children and the photographs reflect this.


 * The re-emergence of lynching photographs as a genre, with the exhibition Without Sanctuary in 2003, brought them into the public eye again but within a changed political context. For modern audiences, they were historical documents that made visitors feel part of a spectacle of violence. The gaze, for most of these viewers, was paramount once the political imperative to end lynchings had been eradicated by earlier generations. Yet elderly people with personal connections to people who had been lynched disrupted that gaze in poignant ways and reinforced the power and importance of looking. In fact, one man entered the exhibition in Atlanta looking in a very directed way—for evidence of his own father’s death—only to be overwhelmed with emotion, unable to remain in the gallery.


 * Commenting on the September 7, 1905, burning of 21-year-old Steve Aaron (aka Aaron Jessie; aka Steve Davis) in Howard, Texas (in Ellis County, nine miles southeast of Waxahachi), one reporter described the scene and concluded: "That five minutes of a return to primal savagery cannot be wiped out within the course of one brief lifetime. Five thousand Texans are irremediably debased." Davis was accused, but with no evidence, of attacking Mrs. S. P. Norris September 4 in her home near Howard, a small farming community five miles south of Lake Waxahachie. –


 * Davis: daguerreotype (daguerrean) photographer??


 * The San Francisco Examiner, on November 17, 1895, published five sketches of Hillard's lynching, drawn by staff illustrator Jules Pages (1867–1946), who used photographs reportedly taken by G.C. Irons that had been sent to the Examiner by Paul J. Tustin:

<li> "Arranging the Scaffold" <li> "Taking the Prisoner to Tyler" <li> "The Condemmed Man, Praying While Surrounded by his Captors" <li> "The Crowd in the Public Square at Tyler" <li> "The Scene After Bell Applied the Match"</ol>

Influence
Less than 30 days later, a mob near Bryan, Texas, lynched an African American for allegedly killing a little girl, only to find out later that they had hung the wrong man.

A database at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law reflects that, in 1895, there were 179 known lynchings in the United States, 113 (63%) were African American.


 * Quote source
 * There have been 468 documented lynchings in Texas between 1885 and 1942, which ranks the state third – following behind Mississippi and Georgia. Of those lynchings in Texas, 339 were black, 77 white, 53 Hispanic, and 1 Indian. Half of the white victims died between 1885 and 1889, and 53 percent of the Hispanics died around 1915. About 40 percent of the Texas lynchings were for accusations of murder,
 * 26 percent were for accusations of rape or attempted rape.


 * African Americans, over all other ethnic groups, were more frequently lynched for rape. For African Americans, murder-related charges accounted for 40 percent of the lynchings and alleged rape accounted for 32 percent. All but 15 of the 322 lynching incidents occurred in the eastern half Texas. The highest frequency of lynchings occurred along the Brazos River – from


 * to the
 * Gulf of Mexico – where eleven counties accounted for 20 percent of all lynchings. Other high-frequency areas were
 * McLennan County (20) (Waco)
 * Marion (31)
 * Waller (17)
 * Anderson (20)
 * Harrison County (17) and neighboring counties in Louisiana, namely
 * Caddo Parish (48) – one of the most lynching-prone areas in the country, and in
 *  Contiguous to Texas counties:


 * Panola
 * Harrison
 * Marion
 * Cass


 * Lamar (11)
 * Grimes (11) and surrounding counties in Northeast Texas.


 * Gulf Coast, Texas


 * Jefferson (8)
 * Montgomery (6) (Houston area)
 * Brazoria (5)
 * Harris (5) (Houston)


 * East Texas


 * Sabine (9)
 * Brazos (7) (near Texas A&M)
 * Freestone (7)
 * Limestone (7)
 * Red River (5) (borderng Oklahoma)
 * San Augustine (5)
 * Smith (5)


 * East Texas along the Brazos River


 * Falls (7)


 * Other


 * Colorado (5)


 * Contiguous to Lamar County
 * Choctaw County, Oklahoma
 * Red River
 * Delta
 * Fannin
 * Bryan County, Oklahoma


 * Border counties:


 * Caddo Parish (48)
 * De Soto Parish (5)
 * Miller County, Arkansas (7)
 * Sabine Parish (3)
 * Vernon Parish (?)
 * Beauregard Parish (?)
 * Calcasieu Parish (?)
 * Cameron Parish (?)


 * Texans also made important contributions to the antilynching movement. Part of this was unintentional: the gruesome and widely publicized 1893 torture-burning of Henry Smith (1876–1993) before an assembly of thousands at Paris helped galvanize the infant antilynching movement into action. In a more positive vein, Texas native Jessie Daniel Ames of Georgetown founded and served as president of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, the most effective antilynching group in the country. The legislature passed an antilynching law in 1897, governors called out the Texas Volunteer Guard to help defend prisoners on numerous occasions, and local officers sometimes went to great lengths to protect their prisoners.

1897 Anti-Lynching law passed
An attempt in 1892 by Texas Governor James Stephen “Big Jim” Hogg asked the State Legislature to pass anti-lynching law. His request failed. Then in 1897, a law requiring the prosecution of those involved in lynchings, as well as law enforcement personnel that permitted such action. Over the years that followed, lynchings began to decline.

At the urging of then Governor Charles Allen Culberson:


 * State of Texas, 25th Legislature, 1st Called Session, Acts 1897
 * House Bill 30, p. 40, Chapter 13 (link), entitled – "An act to fix the venue and regulate proceedings in prosecutions for rape, define and punish murder by mob violence, provide for the suspension and removal of sheriffs, constables, deputy sheriffs, chiefs of police, city marshals and other officers who knowingly and wilfully [sic] permit it; and fix the venue and regulate proceedings in such cases." Of the 98 present, there were 89 yeas and 9 nays – 26 were absent and 2 were excused.


 * Nays:
 * Benjamin Bryant Beaird (1840–1915), Legislator for 2 terms (from January 8, 1895, to January 10, 1899) from Tyler representing Camp, Smith, and Upshur Counties
 * Albert Sidney Bird (1859–1925), Legislator for 1 term (from January 12, 1897, to January 10, 1899) from Patrick (on the Brazos River eleven miles northwest of downtown Waco in northern McLennan County) representing McLennan County
 * R.F. Blair (né Robert Frank Blair; 1868–1932), Legislator for 2 terms (from January 8, 1895, to January 10, 1899) from San Antonio representing Bexar County. He later practiced law in Wagoner, Oklahoma. Blair died in Tulsa.
 * Hiram Edwin Crowley (1863–1942), Legislator for 1 term (from January 12, 1897, to January 10, 1899) from Midland representing the counties of:

<li> Andrews <li> Borden <li> Cochran <li> Crane <li> Crosby <li> Dawson <li> Ector <li> Fisher <li> Gaines <li> Garza <li> Glasscock <li> Haskell <li> Hockley <li> Howard <li> Kent <li> Loving <li> Lubbock <li> Lynn <li> Martin <li> Midland <li> Mitchell <li> Nolan <li> Reeves <li> Scurry <li> Stonewall <li> Terry <li> Upton <li> Ward <li> Winkler <li> Yoakum</ol></ol>


 * Byron Drew (1855–1932), Legislator for 2 terms (from January 8, 1895, to January 10, 1899) from Kaufman representing Kaufman and Hunt Counties
 * Frederic "Fred" Moses Gilbough (1855–1951), Legislator for 2 terms (from January 8, 1895, to January 10, 1899) from Galveston representing Galveston County
 * John Matthew "Jaybird" Moore (1862–1940), Legislator for 1 term (from January 12, 1897, to January 10, 1899) from Richmond representing Fort Bend and Waller Counties
 * Calvin Thaxton (1854–1928), Legislator for 1 term (from January 12, 1897, to January 10, 1899) from Mason representing Mason County
 * Frank Edward Wilcox (1865–1938), Legislator for 1 term (from January 12, 1897, to January 10, 1899) from McKinney representing Collin County


 * Senate Bill 21, p. 16, Chapter 9 (link)
 * Passed anti-lynching bills in both the House and the Senate one day before adjournment, which was then signed by the Governor.

Irony of Augustine vs. State
One of the effects of H.B. 30 passed in 1897 was to have speedy trials related to rape. Yet, the Augustine vs. State, trial, which struck down parts of H.B. 30, lasted 22 years – initially delayed by a technicality in the filing in which the word ????? was used instead of the statutatorily required word ?????.


 * Sections 1 and 2 of the act, which relate to punishment of the mob, have been declared inoperative and void (Dave Augustine vs. The State of Texas, 52 South Western Reporter, 77; Texas Court of Criminal Appeals), but the sections relating to forfeiture by the Sheriff of his office and disqualifying him from thereafter holding the office have not been passed on by the courts. Since the law went into effect no officer has permitted a prisoner to be taken from him and mobbed.
 * On September 19, 1876, Dr. Phillip Haddox Brassell (1827–1876) and his son, George Thomas Brassell (1854–1876), were murdered in Yorktown, Texas. Seven men, allies of William E. Sutton of the Sutton–Taylor feud were implicated.
 * William Cox (né William Webb Cox; 1854–1923)
 * Nicholas J. "Jake" Ryan
 * Joe Sitterlee (né Joseph F. Setterlee; 1855– ), Deputy Sheriff of DeWitt County who, on December 20, 1876, in DeWitt County, married Melissa O. Cox (maiden; 1857–1933), William Cox's sister
 * William D. Meador, Marshall of Cuero
 * Charley Diedrichs (Charles Henry Heissig; né Carl Heinrich Heissig; 1822–1880)
 * Frank Heister (James Hester?)
 * Dave Augustine (né David Albert Augustine; 1838–1912), in 1899, was pardoned for the murder he committed in 1876.


 * A year earlier, in 1875, the Texas Rangers had established a special force under the command of Leander H. McNelly (1844–1877) with the specific task of bringing order to the Nueces Strip. Jesse Lee Hall (1849–1911), a member of that force, on December 20, 1876, showed up at the wedding of Joe Sitterlee and Mellissa O. Cox and informed all seven men that they were under arrest for the murder of the two Brassells.


 * The Augustine case lasted nearly 22 years. At the time, the most celebrated case in western Texas history. Cox, Ryan, and Litterlee were convicted for murder and sentenced to death. Meadows was captured in 1892 and tried in DeWitt County


 * The anti-lynching bill was described by the press as stringent.
 * The last of forty-two black Reconstruction-era legislators, Robert Lloyd Smith (1861–1942) of Colorado County, attended his final sessions in 1897, offering an impassioned resolution on May 4, 1897, against lynching. He was the last African American to serve as a state legislator until 1966.


 *  Since passage of the H.B. 30 in 1897, instances of law officers surrendering prisoners to mobs fell sharply. The ability of law officers to NOT surrender prisoners, in some quarters, became a sort of badge of honor. For example, in the case of S.H. Tittle (né Samuel Houston Tittle; 1856–1951), longtime Sheriff of Greer County, his obituary pointed out that he never lost a man. 

Anti-lynching bill in Texas (1949)

 * Texas House Bill 83: Fifty-First Legislature of the State of Texas, Volume 1 Page: 648; "Relating to defining mobs and lynching and defining lynching in the first degree and lynching in the second degree; prescribing penalties therefor; providing the duties of the District Attorneys with respect to the Act; providing that this Act shall not repeal existing laws relating to unlawful assemblies, rioting, and offenses against the person;" written by Representative Samuel Jackson Isaacks (1869–1956) of El Paso under the recommendation of Governor H. Beauford Jester who wanted to "modernize" Texas and "take the wind out of the sails of northern Democrats and Republicans." The bill never passed.

Costigan-Wagner and Wagoner-VanNuys anti-lynching bills (1933–1938)

 * Opposed by Southern Democrats, including Tom Connally (1877–1963), born in Eddy, Texas, and a Conservative Southern Democrat Senator from Texas, who led a filibuster
 * Sponsored by:
 * Senator Edward P. Costigan (1874–1939), of Colorado
 * Senator Robert F. Wagner (1877–1953), of New York
 * Senator Frederick Van Nuys (1874–1944), of Indiana

Dyer anti-lynching bill (2020)
The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill is named for Leonidas C. Dyer who introduced it in 1918. In 2020, U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert – born and raised in nearby Camp County, resident of Tyler, and who's congressional district includes Tyler – voted against the Dyer Bill, which would make lynching a federal hate crime. He cited his preference for the death penalty under Texas law. In a criticism against Gomert, former Tyler City Councilman Pastor Ralph Caraway said, "After over 400 lynchings in Texas from 1885 to 1942, we should be at the point where lynching is universally condemned in our society."


 * His district:
 * Lufkin-Nacogoches
 * Longview-Marshall
 * Tyler


 * An irony is that Gohmert's district is infamous for lynchings (including incidents where Texas law enforcement surrendered their prisoners to lynch mobs) – post Civil War
 * 11 nationally publicized lynchings in Tyler
 * 3 nationally publicized lynchings in Longview
 * 26 reported lynchings in Marshall
 * 3 in Nacogdoches County
 * 2 in Carthage
 * 4 in Henderson

Emmett Till Antilynching Act

 * Emmett Till Antilynching Act

National apology
In 2005, during Graham’s first Senate term, a unanimous Senate passed a resolution apologizing to lynching victims and their descendants for the chamber’s failure to enact anti-lynching legislation. It expressed “the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of the victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States.” It also called on the Senate to “remember the history of lynching, to ensure that these tragedies will neither be forgotten nor repeated.”

Rembrance in Tyler
On July 29, 2020, Tyler community members, which included Bishop Nick McGrew of the Higher Education Ministries, honored eight lynching victims of Tyler.

International prohibition against torture

 * After World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"
 * International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the United States in 1992
 * United Nations Convention against Torture, ratified by the Unites States in 1994
 * U.S. government, "U.S. law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a "state of public emergency") or on orders from a superior officer or public authority."

Selected condemnation
An article in The Nation, November 21, 1895, by Susan Pendleton Lee (1933–1911):


 * "We owe an apology to our readers for printing, even with omissions, such horrible, sickening details. The collection of these examples of the unchanged spirit of slavery will, we fear, appear to Mrs. Lee to be 'harsh criticism.' But, with a new application of Helper's flout at Uncle Tom's Cabin, it is all well enough for women to give the fiction of slavery; men should give the facts." Lee was the daughter of Confederate General William Nelson Pendleton (1809–1883) and the wife of Confederate General Edwin Gray Lee (1836–1870).


 * The book was one of the first school books published by B. F. Johnson, and became popular across the South. B. F. Johnson became one of the largest publishers of school books in the South.


 * "Godless government was illustrated in inciting the burning at the stake, with torture, of the negro Hilliard (sic), at Tyler, Texas, and the comment was: – 'We stand aghast when we read of the tortures inflicted upon missionaries in semi-civilized countries. Let us blush for our own shortcomings at home. Instead of the best men in the community forming a Government, we have permitted the lowest classes to seize the ship of state." – Dr. Joseph Silverman (1860–1930), Sermon: "Good Government or Godless Government," November 2, 1995, Temple Emanu-El – published in The New York Times, November 3, 1895


 * The Unionville Crescent (Unionville, Michigan) averred that "the crime committed by the people of Tyler was more hideous than that of Hilliard [sic]. It was the work of savages. To that extent or at least it was paralleled by the crime of Hilliard. But it went further than this. Hilliard's crime had no influence outside of its immediate environment. The crime of the people of Tyler brutalized every one who witnessed it, prepared the way for more outrages of a similar nature, and brought the law into contempt. It was devilish in its cold-bloodedness. It was so monstrously cruel as to be almost incredible."


 * Rev. Thornton
 * Doran

Public reflection of lynchings
"Duluth Lynching Victims Remembered 100 Years Later," by Sarah Gannon, KTTC, June 15, 2020

"History – An Old Phenomenon: The Victim as Criminal," by Arica L. Coleman, Time, September 29, 2016

"Why is the Negro Lynched?," by Frederick Douglass, The A.M.E. Church Review;


 * Originally printed in a pamphlet from an address by Douglass delivered at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1894, on the Lessons of the Hour, Baltimore: Thomas & Evans (1894); ; (accessible via HathiTrust at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012239111)


 * "Reprinted by permission of the A.M.E. Church Review for memorial distribution by a few of his English friends," Bridgwater, Somerset, England: John Whitby and Sons, Limited (1895);, ; (accessible via Project Gutenberg at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59116/59116-h/59116-h.htm)


 * LOC image

Trivialization by whites of the Tyler lynching

 * The frightful lynching affair at Tyler Tex., afforded the sports of Dallas opportunity of some grim, satirical facetiousness. They extended an invitation to the Tylerites when they arrange another lynching bee to bring the subject to Dallas, and the entertainment can be given in the amphitheatre the good people of the State would not let Corbett and Fitzsimmons occupy.

Twisted adoration of torture

 * Hilliard's power of endurance was the most wonderful thing on record! His lower limbs burned off before he became unconscious." The writer asked, "Was it decreed by an avenging God as well as an avenging people that his sufferings should be prolonged beyond the ordinary endurance of mortals?


 * Book excerpt 1
 * ''Hilliard's suffering was measured against not only the grim composure of the mob but also the suffering of the white woman who had endured his alleged assault. It was her suffering, after all, that ultimately justified the excessive tortures the mob inflicted. If the sanctity of white womanhood had been violated, that sanctity could be restored only through the unbearable torment and suffering of the alleged violator.


 * Book excerpt 2
 * The circumspection about publishing images stemmed not just from a desire to protect the identities of mob members. In 1895, the Atlanta Constitution was horrified that the New York World, published a photograph of the burning of Robert Hilliard in Tyler, Texas, presumably the same image that Texas residents later reproduced in stereograph cards. Although the paper agreed that Hilliard was a "criminal monster" who committed a "diabolical crime," it objected to the display of the photograph because it "pander[ed] to a base taste" of those "readers who delight in everything that is exceptionally horrible." The Atlanta Constitution further expressed concern that such images only fueled the national perception that "the South was a land of barbarians." To publish the lynching photograph was, in this sense, a form of "pictorial libeling" against the good people of the South.''

People
<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li>

<li> <li> <li> <li> <li> <li>


 * All received congratulatory telegrams for their effective work in capturing Hillard.
 * Hillard told Sheriff Smith, "Old man Bill Brown owned my people in slavery times."

Surrendering of prisoners by law officers to lynch mobs

 * United States v. Shipp – re: duty law enforcement officers to protect prisoners in their custody

Editing notes

 * Note to Thats Just Great:
 * At your urging, I am 98% sold on the use of the Note/Reference style (with cite templates) that you implemented (and defended and enforced) in the Arthur story. Moreover, you purged full titles and retained selected subheads that hone-in more precisely on the germane connection, which also minimized clutter. I, however, think that some subheads tell a story. I'm not criticizing – I get it. You're good at this. And I would not change a thing.
 * With respect to the Note/Reference style, tho, in some cases, it seems to double (in a redundant way) inlining, particularly when there are a lot of singles. I mention this to you because you are superb at it.  But, take a look at the very bottom of something in my sandbox to see my point of redundancy, to wit: Lynching of Hillard work page

References: newspapers































































 * "Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894–1909" ; ;.









References: books, magazines, scholarly journals, papers, online media, other

 * (1st ed.), (2nd ed.); ISBN 978-0-2927-7370-7;






 * ; ISBN 978-0-8078-6655-9; ,.




 * ; ISBN 0-8071-2194-0;.








 * ; (re: etymology of the term "spectacle lynchings," pps. 117, 119, 121, 122, 132, 134)


 * ; ISBN 978-1-4381-3021-7, ISBN 0-8160-4543-7;.








 * Other links:
 * Other links:

<li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li></ol></ol> Cited pamphlets: <li> <li>

<li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li></ol></ol>






 * (re: burning of Dudley Morgan, a Black man, in East Texas at Lansing, fifteen miles west of Marshall and just west of Hallsville in Harrison County, May 22, 1902)




 * ; ISBN 978-0-8071-3283-8;.


 * ISBN 978-1-3390-9874-6; ; (Ethnic NewsWatch database; subscription required)


 * ; ISBN 0-2927-0618-9;.




 * ; ISBN 978-0-2927-7370-7;.

Stereographs: <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li></ol></ol>




 * ; Note: The author did not identify a source for his claim that the naming of Confederate Avenue was an outgrowth of the lynching of African American Union Soldiers; but he was a third generation citizen of Lindale, which, one might infer that he learned of it, anecdotally.





References: government and genealogical archives, maps, historical society publications, law journals and reviews


Full: <li> <li> <li> <li> <li> <li> <li> <li> </ol> Supplemental: <li> </ol> Full: <li> <li> </ol></ol>








 * , pp. 116–118 (117, col. 2)


 * (re: Insurrection Scare in East Texas)




 * From a larger collection, Election Registers, 1836–1900; manuscript books wherein the Secretary of State recorded the official election returns (34 books, about 15,000 pages) (link)





<li> <li> <li> </ol>

<li> </ol></ol>


 * Category:1869 births
 * Category:1895 deaths
 * Category:1895 in Texas
 * Category:People murdered in Texas
 * Category:October 1895 events
 * Category:Lynching deaths in Texas
 * Category:Racism in the United States
 * Category:African-American history
 * Category:African-American history of Texas
 * Category:Anti-black racism in the United States
 * Category:1895 murders in the United States
 * Category:History of Tyler, Texas
 * Category:Murdered African-American people
 * Category:Racially motivated violence against African Americans
 * Category:Deaths from fire in the United States
 * Category:African-American history between emancipation and the civil rights movement
 * Category:History of racism in Texas
 * Category:Riots and civil disorder in Texas