Here's an interesting news story I found while looking through the 1882 newspaper archives. It's a story that seemed incredible on the face of it. Too hard to believe. And no, it's not every day that I find a story in newspaper archives that has me researching for more information like this one did.
As for what I found? Well, it made me wonder what drives such people to do such heinous things. I made me wonder why things change yet in many ways stay the same.
The report of a murder plot by blacks in Alabama to kill every white man in Choctaw County, Alabama, made the news in August 1882. Yes, indeed, it was nationally circulated by telegraph. In fact, the Los Angeles Herald published it in Volume XVII, Number 156, on August 23, 1882, as follows:
A MURDEROUS PLOT
A Conspiracy among Negroes to Massacre all the Whites of Choctaw County, Alabama — The Ringleader Hanged.
Mobile, Aug. 22.— In Choctaw County, Alabama, on the 15th, a bundle of papers disclosing a well-organized plot among negroes to kill the entire White population of that county was found on the 18th.
A quiet meeting of the citizens was called to consider the best mode of suppressing the intended outbreak and massacre. After discussion, it was agreed that the ringleaders were Jack Turner, K D. Barney, Jesse Wilson, Peter Hill, and Willis Lyman. Aaron Scott and Range West, to whom had been assigned the duties of leading their respective squads to Butler Mount, Sterling, De Sotorillc, and other places, and killing all the Whites at each place, should be arrested and lodged in jail.
Their arrest was effected on the 17th without disturbance or bloodshed. The same day, a mass meeting of the citizens of all classes was called to decide the fate of the prisoners.
The plot has been in existence since 1878, and the conspirators now number 400. They have powder, shot, and guns, and think themselves sufficiently strong to accomplish their fiendish design. Sunday night, the 17th of September, had been appointed for its consummation.
The meeting brought together about 700 men, among whom were about 150 negroes, who, after hearing the papers read, by an almost unanimous vote, decided that Jack Turner was a dangerous and turbulent character, a regular firebrand in the community, and that the public good demanded his immediate death.
He was accordingly hanged at a quarter past one o'clock the same afternoon, in the presence of the multitude. The crowd then dispersed. The other prisoners are still in jail to await further developments.
-- end of report.
But wait, this couldn't have been the end of the story. After they hanged Jack Turner, and the crowd simply "dispersed," what happened to the others who were still in jail? Did they hang them? Were they simply set free? Was that the end of it? It didn't make sense to me. There had to be more to this story.
Then, I found this news story published in the Morning Press in Volume XI, Number 46, from August 23, 1882:
Bulldozing and Terrorism.
New York, August 23.— The Tribune's Washington special says the conviction prevails that the remarkable story telegraphed from Alabama about an alleged conspiracy among the Blacks to murder all the Whites in Choctaw County, is the invention of bulldozers and that the hanging of Jack Turner, without trial, is only the beginning of another season of political terrorism.
-- end of report.
A dispatch was published in our columns a short time ago relating the particulars of an alleged negro conspiracy in Choctaw County, Alabama. It was said that certain negroes had formed a plan to murder all the White men in the county; that a bundle of papers had been found describing the whole plot; and that on the strength of the information thus obtained, a thousand White citizens had assembled, seized six of the negro ringleaders, and hanged their alleged leader, one Jack Turner.
-- end of report.
Sadly, the story of "A Murderous Plot" was all made up. All just a hoax fabricated by Democrats in 1882 to cover-up their murder of a Black Republican. By not just any Black Republican, he was responsible for organizing Black voters to vote for the Republican Party that freed them, instead of voting for the Democratic Party that fought a Civil War to keep them in chains. He was a Preacher who used his influence to take power away from those who wanted control of the lives of people they once owned as slaves.
Democrats have a legacy of trying to control others. Democrats created Black Codes in Southern states in 1865 and 1866, immediately after the Civil War. The Black Codes were designed to restrict the freedom of emancipated Black Americans and force them back into labor. These laws enforced vagrancy penalties, mandated yearly labor contracts, restricted property ownership, and essentially sought to restore a slave-like economy by passing restrictive laws to do so.
Laws mandated that Blacks sign yearly labor contracts, often with their former Slave Masters. Failure to do so could result in arrest, fines, or being forced into unpaid labor. Being unemployed was criminalized. Those convicted of "vagrancy" were fined and, if unable to pay, their labor was hired out to Democrat planters.
Political terrorism? Why did they make reference to his lynching being political? This made me even more interested in finding out what really happened, or at least how the situation with the others in jail was resolved. So again, I researched for a follow-up story. And yes, I found it.
Published in the Sacramento Daily Union in Volume 16, Number 15, on September 7, 1882, was an in-depth follow-up to what happened on August 22nd in Choctaw County, Alabama.
THE OLD SPIRIT STILL AT WORK IN THE SOUTH
A dispatch was published in our columns a short time ago relating the particulars of an alleged negro conspiracy in Choctaw County, Alabama. It was said that certain negroes had formed a plan to murder all the White men in the county; that a bundle of papers had been found describing the whole plot; and that on the strength of the information thus obtained, a thousand White citizens had assembled, seized six of the negro ringleaders, and hanged their alleged leader, one Jack Turner.
The whole story was so incredible on its face that the Record Union at once pronounced it a fiction, and expressed the opinion that when the truth was ascertained, the hanging of Jack Turner would prove to have been a political crime, perpetrated by the Bourbons of Choctaw County to rid themselves of an intelligent and active colored Republican.
The details of the case are now at hand, and they show that our estimate was singularly correct. The facts are as follows: Jack Turner was the leading negro of Choctaw County. He was a preacher, a man of great native force of character, a Republican, and a natural leader of his people.
For some time past, it had been the practice of certain Bourbon planters to compel the colored men who worked for them to vote the Democratic Party ticket. On an election day, one of these Bourbons, named Carnathan, hitched up his horses and went to take his hands to the polls as usual. One of them, named Manning, however, declined to vote the Democratic ticket, saying that he had done so for years, and could not see that any good had come to him from it.
Carnathan became furious, took Manning into a stable, tied him np, and flogged him most brutally with a leather trace, having an iron hook at the end. Manning's back was terribly cut up, and he was for a long time disabled.
Turner heard of the outrage and persuaded the victim to prosecute the ruffian Carnathan in the Federal Court, for the State Courts have no justice for negroes as yet. Carnathan was indicted, through the energetic work of Jack Turner, and of course, he became the bitter enemy of the man who had brought him to justice.
This, however, might have been passed over had not Turner had the audacity to act on the theory that colored citizens possess equal political rights in Alabama. He [Turner] organized the colored vote in Choctaw County for the Republican ticket, and he proved himself so good a politician that at the election of August 7th, the Bourbons had a majority of only 20. It was evident that if this active colored leader was not stopped in his political career, he would carry the county next time.
Turner was Chairman of the Republican County Committee, and his word was law with his followers. So, ten days after the election, a mob of White scoundrels collected under cover of night, took Turner and his principal followers, hanged the former, and flogged and tortured the latter, under the thin pretense of a conspiracy.
It was, as we surmised from the first, one of those cowardly political outrages by the commission of which the Southern people have succeeded in retarding their own progress, keeping capital and enterprise out of their section, and sustaining in the Northern mind the profound conviction that they cannot be trusted with power again in the councils of the nation.
Jack Turner was as much a martyr as John Brown.
He was engaged in a noble cause. He was organizing his people politically, and enabling them to utilize the suffrage conferred upon them by the nation. For this, he was brutally murdered by a mob of cowardly White loafers, who, possessing no deserts of any kind, swagger and strut about their slovenly holdings, and because they are lazy and ferocious and dissolute and profane, flatter themselves that they are "gentlemen" and the very salt of the country.
One man like poor Jack Turner is worth a battalion of such "White trash" as the mob that murdered him, and until the better elements of the South realize that truth, and act upon it; until public opinion in those States enables justice to be done in the Courts, and accords to every honest man, no matter what his color, equal protection and respect; the South will continue to languish, will cry in vain for capital, and will be doomed to appear at each Presidential election as the "shocking example" which justifies the country in voting down the Democratic Party ticket.
Here was a man who was doing nothing, which it was not his right to do. He was simply exercising the political attributes which are the heritage of every American citizen. He was working towards higher and better things in politics. He was sustaining and advancing that Republican Party policy which every colored man in the Union must support if he understands his own interests.
And for this he was seized at midnight, taken from his family and friends, and basely murdered under every accompaniment of insult and humiliation that the mingled cruelty and mendacity of his enemies could devise. The contemptibly silly story which the Choctaw County Bourbons invented as an apology for their foul crime shows what sort of creatures intellectually they are.
Every schoolboy knew that the account of a "Negro Conspiracy" which was alleged to have been proceeding for six years was a clumsy fiction. Negroes do not enter into conspiracies. Negroes do not prepare elaborate written accounts of what they intend.
The story of the bundle of papers is even more preposterous than the other. The plain truth, now first disclosed, is as we have stated it. Jack Turner was murdered by the Bourbons because he was a good citizen, not because he was a bad one. He was killed because he had proved himself more enlightened, intelligent, and energetic than the worthless White "canaille" [scoundrel or crook] which arrogates to itself political supremacy in the nest of barbarian-ridden counties which lies in that section.
For Choctaw County is in the midst of a veritable "dark and bloody ground." It adjoins Sumter County, the scene of the Billings and Ivey assassinations, and that again abuts on Kemper County, Mississippi, made infamous by the Chisolm Massacre. The southwestern portion of Alabama is, in fact, nearly all missionary ground, but the missionaries who go there ought to be well armed with self-cocking revolvers and repeating rifles.
The murder of Turner and the outrage upon his lieutenants shows that the old detestable Bourbon spirit still lives at the South. The same spirit still lives at the South. The same spirit has been exhibited at the Arkansas election, where the Republican voters were driven from the polls, and a negro was killed.
Crimes like this, however, react with disastrous effect upon the Counties and States which permit and condone them. The North will never trust the national party, which is in political alliance with the South, so long as such atrocities continue to be perpetrated. For it is only too apparent that under a Democratic Party Administration there would not be even the pretence of fair play toward the colored voters, but that they would, by common consent, be reduced to a state of serfdom and terrorism more galling and intolerable even than the slavery of old.
-- end of report.
Sadly, the story of "A Murderous Plot" was all made up. All just a hoax fabricated by Democrats in 1882 to cover-up their murder of a Black Republican. By not just any Black Republican, he was responsible for organizing Black voters to vote for the Republican Party that freed them, instead of voting for the Democratic Party that fought a Civil War to keep them in chains. He was a Preacher who used his influence to take power away from those who wanted control of the lives of people they once owned as slaves.
"Bourbons" were the elite Democrats, the wealthy planters and landowners who dominated post-Reconstruction politics in the South. They sought to maintain control and refused to let go of the pre-Civil War social order that put Black Americans at the bottom of the social ladder. Acting as the local power structure, they violently opposed political alliances of freed slaves with the Whites Republicans who fought to free them.
Laws mandated that Blacks sign yearly labor contracts, often with their former Slave Masters. Failure to do so could result in arrest, fines, or being forced into unpaid labor. Being unemployed was criminalized. Those convicted of "vagrancy" were fined and, if unable to pay, their labor was hired out to Democrat planters.
Democrats made sure Black people were prohibited from owning firearms, serving on juries, testifying against Whites, and in some areas, owning land outside of designated towns. As for Black orphans or children of parents deemed unable to support them, those children were forced into "apprenticeships" with Democrats planters -- who were often former their former owners.
Democrats created Black Codes to ensure that they'd have a cheap, reliable labor force for Southern agriculture. The oppressive nature of these codes outraged Republicans in the North, leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment, which aimed to secure equal rights.
Democrats created Black Codes to ensure that they'd have a cheap, reliable labor force for Southern agriculture. The oppressive nature of these codes outraged Republicans in the North, leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment, which aimed to secure equal rights.
While most Black Codes were repealed during Congressional Reconstruction in 1866-1867, Democrats resurrected many aspects of the Black Codes when the Democrats created Jim Crow laws. Democrats instituted Jim Crow laws in the disenfranchised1870s after Reconstruction. Their laws enforced strict racial segregation and disenfranched Black citizens. Democrats kept control over Blacks in the South through state and local statutes until the 1960s. It's hard to believe, but it's true. It took almost 100 years for the legal system of the Democratic Party's Jim Crow Laws to be finally dismantled by federal legislation in the 1960s, specifically the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
When Democrats regained political control of the South in the 1870s, they established discriminatory laws to reverse any sort of Civil Rights gains for Blacks. They used laws enforcing segregation, while poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation were used to stop Black people from voting. During all of this, the unofficial militant arm of the Democratic Party, like today's ANTIFA, was the KKK and other terrorist groups, created to terrorize and keep Blacks in line. That's why they murdered Jack Turner in 1882. He stood up to them.
To show you how the Democratic Party playbook has not changed, though the original story of "A Murderous Plot" was disproved by September of that year, Democrat-controlled newspapers kept running the lie of "A Murderous Plot," as it was first circulated in August, through the end of 1882.
As for those people who would say that the Democrats in 1882 would never have killed a Black Republican because he was a political threat, here's this: Democrats were defeated in the 1882 local elections in Choctaw County, Alabama, by a coalition organized by Black Republican Jack Turner.
What can we learn from this?
Well, we know the reason why Democrats lynched Jack Turner. He was a political threat, and they killed him. Of course, it's the same reason why Democrats today have incited assassination attempts against Republican President Donald Trump and violent attacks against Republican Trump supporters. It's what they do to political threats. It's what Democrats have always done. Whether it was inciting the assassination of Republican President Abraham Lincoln or lynching Republicans like Jack Turner, it's just what Democrats do.
History teaches us a great deal about how people conduct themselves, good and bad. As for the bad, history teaches us how people fake changes, how they pretend to be something they are not, how they game the system, and how they return to the same old playbook time and time again. If we look at things for what they are, then we will always see the particular way or method that people do things -- especially things that are characteristic or well-established by them.
Among the timeless options of the Democratic Party is that of accusing their political opponents of what they are guilty of. Another is their use of authoritarianism to control others. It's their old slave master mentality. And yes, whether we like it or not, Democrats are violent and resort to violence whenever they feel the need to intimidate or cajole people into following them. History teaches us that Democrats use violence to attack and assassinate their political opponents to subvert the will of the people. History teaches us that that's the case. That's all part and parcel of how the Democratic Party has always operated.
Tom Correa
