March 24, 2025 • 31 mins
Scott and Jenn dive into a powerful story today about the 1892 lynching that sparked Ida B. Wells’ legendary anti-lynching campaign. They break down the events surrounding the tragic deaths of three black businessmen in Memphis and how this injustice turned Wells into a fierce advocate for civil rights. It's a tough topic, but hey, it's crucial to shine a light on these dark moments in history. Plus, we’ll explore how these events connect to the broader story of racial terror and the fight for justice in America. So, grab your headphones, and let’s get into how one brutal act ignited a movement that still resonates today!
🎥 Video from Memphis locations
📍Google Maps of Memphis locations
Takeaways:
- In 1892, the lynching of Thomas Moss and his friends sparked Ida B. Wells' passionate anti-lynching campaign, changing history forever.
- Ida B. Wells was a fearless journalist who exposed lynching as a form of racial terrorism, not justice as claimed by many.
- The People's Grocery lynching highlighted economic competition and racial injustice, leading to tragic consequences for the victims.
- Wells' investigations into lynchings laid the groundwork for the modern civil rights movement, showing the power of truth-telling.
- This episode sheds light on a painful yet crucial part of American history that shaped the fight for civil rights.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:42):
I saw a flyer for this 100thanniversary of a lynching that happened
here in Memphis.
Lynching is a southernhistorical thing that I should know
more about.
The black boy is Armor Harris.
The white boy is Cornelius Hearst.
And they get into a fight overa game of marbles because the black
boy won.
It's hard to talk about, it'suncomfortable to talk about, but
(01:05):
it's important to talk about.
Welcome to Talk with History.
I am your host Scott, herewith my wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast we give youinsights to our history Inspired
World Travels YouTube channelJourney and examine history through
deeper conversations with thecurious, the explorers and the history
(01:26):
lovers out there today.
I want to share a powerfulstory about Ida B.
Wells, a pioneeringinvestigative journalist and civil
rights activist who exposedthe horrific truth about lynching
in America.
Growing up in Holly Springs,Mississippi during Reconstruction,
Wells faced the harsh realityof racial injustice from an early
(01:47):
age.
In 1892, three of her friendswere lynched in Memphis, Tennessee.
And we're going to talk moreabout those successful black business
owners who were murdered by awhite mob.
This tragic event transformedWells into a fierce anti lynching
crusader.
She launched investigationsinto lynchings all across the south,
meticulously documenting theseacts through careful research and
(02:09):
interviews.
Through her newspaper articlesand pamphlets like Southern Horrors,
Lynch Law in all its Phases,Wells revealed that lynching wasn't
about punishing criminals aswas often claimed, but was instead
a systematic form of racialterrorism used to maintain white
supremacy.
Her investigations showed thatmany victims were successful black
(02:33):
business people or those whochallenged racial inequality.
Despite death threats thatforced her to relocate from Memphis
to Chicago, Wells continuedher anti lynching campaign.
For decades.
She traveled across Americaand even to Europe speaking out against
these injuries, justices andorganizing for civil rights.
Her fearless reporting helpedlay the groundwork for the modern
(02:54):
civil rights movement andorganizations like the naacp.
Today we're diving deeper intoWells origin story and the event
that turned her from anoutspoken lady of Memphis to an unstoppable
force shining the light oftruth wherever she went.
(03:21):
Just before we go on and westart moving into the main topic,
we want to let listeners knowthat this may be a slightly sensitive
topic because we are talkingon the 1890s, early 1900s and the
topic of lynching.
So just kind of a heads up foryour parents, you know, if you have
kids in the car, if you wantto listen to this at a later time,
we just wanted to let you guysknow in advance.
(03:42):
Yeah, about 12 years old is agood cutoff for this type of information.
All right, Jen, so you haddone a fair amount of research, learned
a whole lot about the lynchingthat later became known as the People's
Grocery lynching.
Now, this was a pivotal eventfor Ida B.
(04:04):
Wells, and you had learnedabout this through your work with
the local Memphisorganization, lsp, which is the Lynching
Sites Project.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about kind of how you
quickly how you started withlsp, but then really People's Grocery
and how that kind of sparkedIda B.
Wells and all her activismthat came out afterwards.
(04:27):
Okay, that's a lot, but thank you.
This is a deep topic.
So moving to Memphis, gettinga master's degree of history, I saw
a flyer for this 100thanniversary of a lynching that happened
here in Memphis.
It was a 1917 lynching, sothis was 2017.
(04:48):
And I thought, oh, I should goto this.
Lynching is a Southernhistorical thing that I should know
more about.
And since I'm getting amaster's degree of history, I should
learn more about this.
So when I went to this was thelynching of L Persons that happened
here in Memphis.
When I went to that event, Imet these people who were part of
(05:09):
putting on this event, andthey were the lynching side project
of Memphis, and they werereally inspired by Bryan Stevenson
and the Equal Justice Initiative.
So if you understand theLegacy Museum and what he.
His work that he does inAlabama, this all ties together.
And he had come to Memphis andhe had told the people that Shelby
(05:32):
county had more lynchings thanany other county in Tennessee.
And so it was a group ofpeople who wanted to get together
and commemorate that, findjustice for that.
And part of that in my work asa historian is I volunteered my services
as a researcher to help writethese historic markers.
Primary source.
(05:53):
And that's the work I reallydo with lsp.
Yeah.
And Jen actually, and just alittle brag on her, she actually
got a historic marker put upin downtown Memphis, like, for the
first documented lynching everthat happened in here in Memphis.
And so that was something thatshe did kind of, I guess, as a project
for her master's degree.
But she kind of ran point onit, got all the wording, worked with
(06:16):
the organizations and all that stuff.
And then actually, just afterwe moved, she came back when they
finally kind of for the unveiling.
So she did a lot with this.
LSP was kind of was therealong the way as well.
Now, what's the kind ofgenesis of People's Grocery lynching?
(06:40):
So there's been such a change.
When you think of Women'sHistory Month and you think of these
historic women who have reallymade an impact on American history,
Ida B.
Wells kind of rises to the top.
She's one of these people, andpeople don't know much about her,
but they're learning moreabout her.
Like, what did she do?
What was so foundational toher work?
(07:02):
And she's from Memphis, andMemphis has done a great job in these
regions recent years ofhonoring her, spotlighting her.
They put a statue up to herdowntown and information.
But for this lynching, thisparticular lynching of 1892, this
is the spark of starting Ida B.
Wells on her whole activism campaign.
(07:23):
This event made her who she is today.
So if you want to learn aboutIda B.
Wells, this woman that's soimpactful to American history, this
event is what did it.
And I would say it's becauseof how close she was to the people
who were killed.
So this is 1892.
And like Scott had said whenhe first opened, a lot of these lynchings
(07:45):
are tied to economics.
And this is an economic lynching.
So you'll get some forsexuality, especially white women
being or accusing black men ofoverstepping some social norm, whether
it's stepping on their foot orpropositioning them or touching,
(08:07):
putting their hands on them.
There's a lot of lynchingsthat have to do with that.
But I would say double thelynchings are economic.
So this is an economic lynching.
So in 1892, this is about 30years after the Civil War, there
is the outskirts of Memphis iscalled the Curve.
(08:28):
And so it's not incorporatedin the city, it's the outskirts.
Today, it's more inside the city.
But in 1892.
Yeah.
And you have a white grocerand a black grocer right across the
street from each other.
And the white grocer and theblack grocer compete for the same
business, which is the blackcommunity in the area.
(08:49):
And the black grocer is owned.
It's like a co op.
It's kind of owned by 10 black men.
And one of those men is Thomas Moss.
And Thomas Moss is a.
A middle class black man.
He is a postal work.
He is a part owner of this grocery.
He does the books for this grocery.
(09:09):
And because Ida B.
Wells is also a well educatedblack woman and writing a pamphlet
with investigationaljournalism, they're friends.
Yeah, right.
They went in the same circles.
Because she was.
Wasn't she like godmother tohis daughters or something like that?
Yeah, she was Godmother to his children.
And so it's like you're in thesame standing.
(09:33):
You're in the same social normstanding, so you're friends with
each other.
There's not a lot of people in1892 in Memphis, and so they're close.
So what happens in March of 1892?
We're right in the same time frame.
This is when the weatherstarts to get nice in Memphis, right?
And there's two boys out frontof the People's Grocery.
(09:55):
That's the name of the blackgrocery store, which is again across
the street from the whitegrocery store.
There's two boys, a black boyand a white boy.
The black boy is Armed Summer Harris.
The white boy is Cornelius Hearst.
And they get into a fight overa game of marbles because the black
boy won.
And when the black boy wins,the white boy is upset by this.
(10:15):
And the white boy's fathersteps in and begins beating the black
boy right in front of thePeople's Grocery.
So the two workers, the twoblack workers in the People's Grocery,
notice this and go outside andto defend the black boy.
And that's William Stewart andCalvin McDowell.
(10:36):
Remember those names?
So they're there from the verybeginning, and they come to the defense
of the black boy.
And more black and whitepeople get involved in this fight.
And at one point, the owner ofthe white grocery store, William
Barnett, comes out, gets apart of it, and he claims to have
been clubbed, and he claimsthat he was clubbed or hit by Will
(10:59):
Stewart.
So I want to emphasize this,that I just told the story on the
radio in Memphis and I gotsome kind of hate messages that I
wasn't telling the white perspective.
And I want to make sure youunderstand I'm telling both perspectives,
the truth, the facts.
There's no, you know, peoplealways say, and you and I have said
(11:19):
it right, is that there's.
There's three sides to every story.
There's the one person's side,there's the other person's side,
Then there's the.
Then there's the truth, right,in what you relay.
And you do such a good job ofthis, of saying, here's the facts,
right?
I can't give the perspectiveof William Barnett unless he wrote
(11:39):
a journal, and then somebodypublished that journal at a later
time of, like, this is why Iwent out there.
Like, we can't say that.
And there's many kind of quoteunquote historians who do that a
little too often.
But you always do a really,really good job of kind of stating
the facts, giving the contextof the time with the facts as kind
(12:01):
of like the foil that drivesus through this event.
Yes.
I will stress it, William.
Will Stewart never admitted to this.
He never said that he did this.
But this is Barnett, the whitegrocer, is claiming that Will Stewart,
the black worker and partialowner of People's Grocery, did this.
So the very next day, March3rd, Barnett, the White grocer, will
(12:24):
return to the People's Grocerywith a police officer and to arrest
William Stewart, saying thathe was hit.
I want to have him arrested.
And they're met by CalvinMcDowell again, the black worker
who helped in the verybeginning to come out.
And McDowell told him no onematching, well, Stuart's description
(12:45):
was in the store.
Basically, Stuart's not here.
And Barnett gets mad and hehits McDowell with a revolver.
So he has a gun in his handand he hits, hits him, knocks him
down, but drops the gun in the process.
And McDowell is so mad, or,you know, he's been just knocked
down, that he picks up the gunand shoots at them to get out of
(13:06):
the store.
Now, some claim he shot at Barnett.
Some claims that he just shoothim to get out of store.
Either way, he misses Barnett,he doesn't shoot him.
And let's think about it here, right?
If you're inside of a storeand you're holding a revolver like
it, it would not be difficultto hit the target that you're actually
aiming at.
Like, let's be realistic here.
Yeah.
So he's more than likely, Iwould think he's just trying to get
(13:28):
them out of the store.
Yeah.
So McDowell is arrested for this.
So he's subsequently lessarrested for doing this, for shooting
at them.
Even though we forget the partthat he was.
He was assaulted by Barnett.
Let's just forget that wholething ever happened.
But because he fired back toprotect himself and who knows what
(13:49):
he was trying to do, he'sarrested for it.
And.
But he's released on bond thevery next day.
So this is March 4th.
This is two days after theboys are playing marbles out front.
Now, warrants are going to beissued though that day for Will Stewart
because Barnett claimed to behit by him and for Armor Harris.
(14:10):
Who's Armor Harris, the littleblack boy paying marbles.
It's ridiculous.
So what you start to see hereis if you go into more of the research
is there's a judge, JudgeDubose, and he has some quotes of.
I believe in the law ofrevenge, and we need to clean out
the people's Grocery.
(14:30):
So as a judge, he's supposedto be impartial.
These are his quotes that he'ssaying so you can understand where
his allegiance and where hisjustice lies and what he's thinking
about.
This judge is white, formerConfederate soldier.
But this is what's happeningand this is the backing of Barnett,
the white grocer in his fightfor justice.
(14:54):
Now, if I remember right, inthe video, because we made a video
of this, right.
We visited the sites of wherethe People's Grocery lynching happened
and where the men weremurdered and stuff like that.
I believe you said on thevideo that this judge was eventually
ousted.
Yeah.
So the best story is, andwe'll talk about this, is he's, he's
(15:14):
ousted by the other whitelawyers of Memphis and he's, he's
impeached and he loses thenext year after this whole event
happens, the very next year.
And we'll talk more about that.
He gets, he definitely getshis, his comeuppance.
His comeuppance in the end.
So McDowell's arrested,released on bond March 4th.
(15:36):
That's two days later, March 5th.
The judge is quoted in theAvalanche Appeal, that's the Memphis
newspaper, as saying that theyneed to get rid of the high handed
rowdies in the curve.
Right.
And the other quotes that Igave you as well, and the evening
of March 5th, six armed whitemen, including a county sheriff,
(15:57):
and they recently deputizedplain clothes white civilians.
So again, they're coming intoPeople's Grocery, they're not wearing
any uniforms and they'repeople that they know, unknown, that
they've been just deputizedand they come into the People's Grocery
and there's kind of a shootoutthat happens because they're walking
(16:23):
into this people's Grocery.
These, these, the judge andthese plainclothes white men, six
of them armed with guns,shooting at the black workers in
there.
And they basically shoot back.
And when they shoot back, twowhite men are injured.
And that's the very next dayon March 6, because those two white
(16:43):
men are injured.
The judge gets hundreds ofwhite civilians, deputizes them and
they go house to house andarrest 40 black people in the curb.
And that includes ArmorHarris, a little boy playing marbles.
It includes his mother.
And it's going to include thistime Thomas Moss.
So we're going to get WillStewart arrested, Calvin McDowell
(17:05):
arrested.
The two men who've kind ofbeen involved in this whole thing
since the beginning, who ownPeople's Groceries as a co op.
But Thomas Moss is going to bearrested on March 6th.
This is four days after theMarvel incident, because he's part
owner of People's Grocery.
He's never been there for anyof these events, but he's arrested
because he, he partly owns it.
(17:26):
Now, during this time, you'regoing to get Tom, Thomas Moss's pregnant
wife is going to try to cometo the jail to bring him food.
They're going to meet withlawyers in the town, white lawyers.
And how do we help our, ourmen that have been arrested?
And they.
And the judge will not givethem access.
Judge gives them no access toseeing any of the men.
(17:50):
And this is why, again, thesewhite lawyers are going to take the
judge up on impeachmentcharges because he doesn't.
He doesn't allow any habeas corpus.
It's a habeas corpus.
He doesn't allow any legaleseto happen.
He's not upholding the law.
He's not upholding the law.
So on March 8, it comes outthat the two men who were shot in
that shootout on the 6th aregoing to survive.
(18:11):
The two white men are going to survive.
And so what they believehappen is it looks like now that
they can't be held accountablefor killing white men because they
didn't.
Because they didn't.
And so it's going to go intothis vigilante justice.
So again, they're still heldin, in jail.
(18:33):
And on the night of March 9th,like very early in the morning, 2:30
in the morning, 75 white menin black masks will surround the
Shelby County Jail.
Nine will enter and they'll start.
They'll get the keys away fromthe jailers there.
And they ask for the two men,Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell.
(18:58):
They don't make themselvesknown right away.
And so they're kind of beatingup people.
They want more and more.
And so Will Smith and KevinMcDowell come out and they go, now
we want Tommy Moss and another person.
And Thomas Moss steps forward.
A man who hasn't been to anyof these things, he just owns the
People's Grocery, stepsforward after he sees his two co
(19:19):
workers get pulled by thesemen and says, I'm Thomas Moss.
And they say, okay, we want.
And he goes, no, you're notgetting anybody else.
I'm stepping forward.
That's it.
You have the three of us.
So it's such a hero in thatmoment to me.
So they're taken.
The railroad is right alongthe jail there.
They're taking a mile up therailroad, so north of Memphis.
(19:41):
And basically, once they get There.
There's reporters there.
There's people waiting.
That's how we know what happened.
I didn't know that.
Right.
That's how we have, like,drawings of their bodies.
Yeah.
So there.
There's a.
There's a drawing from, Ithink was like published in the newspaper
or something like that that Ishow in the video.
And that's how we get ThomasMoss's last words.
(20:03):
Right.
So they beat McDowell.
McDowell struggles mightily.
Like you can imagine, he's theone who grabs the gun.
And she was like, this is abig guy.
And he.
They have to really like, he.
He takes a shotgun from one ofthe guys and tries to shoot back.
And the mob has to wrestle itfrom him.
And.
And then he's just shot topieces because he fights back.
(20:26):
And.
And it's just Will Stewart is the.
Really.
The biggest guy of them all.
And he was.
And again fought back untilthe end as well.
And then Thomas Moss is thelast, probably because he is the
most.
He's probably not as agrappler as everybody else.
(20:48):
You kind of offered himself upto prevent this mob from grabbing
anybody else that was in that jail.
And with his dying words, he'sshot in the neck.
He says, tell my people to go west.
There's no justice for them here.
And they leave their bodies there.
And again.
So how do we know those werehis last words?
I found it so interesting thatreporters met them at the location
(21:13):
where they were going to kill them.
Yeah.
It's like someone let themknow this was happening.
And this is what lynching.
People always ask, like, whatis what makes lynching a lynching?
It's that people believethey're doing justice.
They believe that they'rejustified in their actions, that
these people deserve to bekilled because they've stepped outside
(21:36):
of the social norms to such adetriment that it needs to be corrected
right away without lawful order.
And you take away theirconstitutional rights and you just
treat them like.
Without any kind of judge orjury, they.
You're.
You decide.
And it's so open.
And usually people don't wearthe masks.
(21:56):
They're very.
They feel safe in doing thisbecause they don't get any punishment
on the backside.
So that's what happened inthis case.
And we go to these locationsso you can see in the video.
We'll take you to where ThomasMoss's grave is.
Thomas Moss is buried in theoldest black cemetery in Memphis.
(22:17):
It's Zion Cemetery.
Zion Christian Cemetery.
And the other two men are alsoburied there.
Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart.
We haven't found their gravesyet, but Thomas Moss grave has been
found.
And we take you to where thelocation of the People's Grocery
is.
We take you to Ida B.
Wells statue in downtown Memphis.
We take you to her marker, andthen we take you to the actual location
(22:41):
where these three men mettheir end.
And we're going to put amarker up there.
We're going to put LSP iswriting a marker.
It should be built here soon.
And we're going to put amarker up in the same location.
You'll see us put threeAmerican flags there.
And I feel very strongly aboutputting American flags there, because
these are three Americans whonever found justice, and justice
(23:06):
has no expiration date.
And so I feel very confident,like what we're doing is a piece
of that.
I don't know if they'll neverfind justice, really.
Their lives were taken fromthem without any wrongdoing, without
any kind of lawful order.
But what we're trying to do istell their story and get their story
(23:27):
out there and get the story ofIda B.
Wells out there, because thatbrings them some kind of justice
today, because so we can learnfrom it and be better people today.
And it belongs to all of us.
It's all of our story.
So Ida B.
Wells, after this happens,because she's so close friends with
Thomas Moss, she's godmotherto his children, she starts writing,
(23:50):
and she's already ajournalist, so she starts calling
out, this killing was aboutthe grocery store.
This killing was about thewhite grocer and the competition.
And so much so that the dayafter these men are killed, the judge
says we need to send a hundredwhite people into the curve to combat
(24:15):
all the riots that are goingto happen.
Because we know now that we'vekilled their men, they're going to
the black community is goingto riot.
Well, you know what happens?
Black community doesn't riotbecause they know these hundred white
men are coming in and thesepeople actually move.
They leave.
They pack up their stuff,these black people leave.
This is what part of the greatmigration is.
(24:37):
They leave Memphis and ThePeople's Grocery, March 10, is raided
by these white they riot.
They come in there, theydestroy the People's grocery.
They take all of the productsin there.
The very next month, it'sforeclosed on, and that white grocer
got what he wanted.
His competition was gone, andall of it was done under the ruse
(25:01):
of the law with Judge Dubosebacking them up.
And so that was such ainjustice that the white Lawyers
at the time who were alsoConfederate soldiers.
I want you to know that this,the one who kind of leads the whole
(25:22):
charge.
Get his name right.
Luke Wright, Confederate soldier.
He takes Judge Dubose up onimpeachment charges, goes to Nashville,
goes to the Capitol, and he'scompletely disbarred.
He can never be a judge again.
Luke Wright, this Memphislawyer, goes on to be the Secretary
(25:45):
of War for Teddy Roosevelt.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
Like when you were telling methe story, right.
And I started making thevideo, it was wild to me.
How, how much, how many crosscrossroads, historic crossroads,
cross at this event?
Because you've never, you'veprobably never heard of it, right?
(26:05):
If you're listening to this,it's more likely than not that you've
never heard of this event before.
You maybe, if, maybe you'veheard of Ida B.
Wells.
Right?
But then when we start talkingabout anti lynching campaigns and,
and the, you know, we knowthat the justice system was kind
of pushed forward in that era,right out of the Reconstruction era.
(26:27):
Obviously it took some, quitesome time, you know, for the civil
rights movement.
But when we start talkingabout white lawyers saying, hey,
that white judge does not needto be there, basically working, running
point on ousting this judge,that is not doing what a judge should
be doing.
And then this, this lawyerbecoming the Secretary of war for
(26:48):
Teddy Roosevelt, like, there'sso many things that kind of sparked
during this event.
And from Ida B.
Wells, it was just fascinating.
Yeah, I mean, so he's oustedin June of 1893.
So this happens in March of1892, and he's ousted a year later.
And what I found mostinteresting is he tries to run again
(27:09):
for Judge in 1902.
I think people might haveforgotten about this, but he is,
he's beat by the incumbent.
It's not even a competition.
And the incumbent's name thatbeats him is Judge John T.
Moss.
Like, that was just so amazingto me.
(27:32):
So part of this work is tokind of connect the dots for people.
Why are, you know, Ida B.
Wells becomes like a suffragette.
She becomes an activist.
She starts to voice what'sgoing on, what's wrong, and she becomes
a woman of power and peoplelook up to her.
And even today, she'scelebrated for taking that stance
(27:53):
and calling out injustice inthe world.
And what was so egregious toher, what hit her so hard that she
had to do something, was herfriendship with Thomas Moss, who
was murdered in Memphis in 1892.
And that's what we like to doon Walk with History is connect those
(28:15):
dots for you and to show youthat how history is so connected
and so taking you out to thatlocation at the very end was just
for us so important to kind ofbe there and to stand there and to
know this is the locationwhere these three men fought for
their lives and that was it.
After that, their people leftthe area.
(28:39):
But the impact that they leaveon American history today, the impact
that they left with Ida B.
Wells and how she stillimpacts us all today, they resonate
in American history.
And if there is any justice,it's the justice that their story
doesn't die.
And the impact of their lives.
(29:02):
And we learn something, we do better.
We don't let that happen again.
And we don't forget who theywere, who she was in American history.
And as Memphis, like, she'sone of those people that just.
Memphis is proud to celebrateher and this is the moment that made
her who she is.
And we're.
We're proud to remember them.
(29:23):
Yeah.
And it's one of those thingsthat when you connect those dots,
you can draw a direct linefrom the People's Grocery lynching
to sparking that flame for Ida B.
Wells and all her work thatled to.
She's considered, but someconsider her kind of a co founder
of the NAACP to the civilrights movements in the 50s, Martin
(29:45):
Luther King and all the stuffthat we know a lot better.
You can draw a direct linefrom those civil rights movements
in the 50s and 60s all the wayback to Ida B.
Wells and the People's grocerylynching of 1892.
It's incredible.
It's incredible.
And that's a part of history.
It's hard to talk about, it'suncomfortable to talk about, but
(30:06):
it's important to talk about.
And we're just really proud tohave done this video.
I actually got to interviewThomas Moss great, great grandson
and have this conversationwith him and let him know how important
his ancestor is to American history.
And I just think more of that.
That is what we need today inour society is we're all in this
(30:29):
together.
History belongs to all of us.
And let's celebrate theseheroes of history and what they overcame
and sometimes how they weredrawn to such action based on friendship.
It's so important and let'snever forget it.
Absolutely.
As we wrap up today's episode,we reflect on the profound impact
(30:53):
of the People's Grocery lynching.
The brutal murders of ThomasMoss, Calvin McDowell and Henry Stewart,
three successful blackbusinessmen and friends of Ida B.
Wells weren't just individual tragedies.
They represented a turningpoint that awakened one of history's
most courageous voices againstracial terror.
(31:13):
These men's only CR crime wasrunning a successful business that
competed with the white merchants.
Their deaths transformed Wellsfrom a local teacher and journalist
into a fearless crusader whowould spend the rest of her life
documenting and exposing thetruth about lynching in America.
Their story reminds us thathistory isn't just about dates and
(31:33):
events.
It's about real people whoselives and deaths shaped the course
of our nation as well.
Wells herself wrote, the wayto right wrongs is to turn the light
of truth upon them.
By learning these stories andsharing them, we keep that light
burning.
This has been a Walk WithHistory production.
Talk With History is createdand hosted by me, Scott Benny.
(31:56):
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
Check out the show notes forlinks and references mentioned in
this episode.
Talk With History is supportedby our fans at the History Road tr.
Our eternal thanks to thoseproviding funding to help keep us
going.
Thank you to Doug withLiberty, Larry Myers and everything.
Make sure you hit that followbutton in your podcast player and
(32:17):
we'll talk to you next time.
I saw a flyer for this 100thanniversary of a lynching that happened
here in Memphis.
Lynching is a southernhistorical thing that I should know
more about.
The black boy is Armor Harris.
The white boy is Cornelius Hearst.
And they get into a fight overa game of marbles because the black
boy won.
It's hard to talk about, it'suncomfortable to talk about, but
(01:05):
it's important to talk about.
Welcome to Talk with History.
I am your host Scott, herewith my wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast we give youinsights to our history Inspired
World Travels YouTube channelJourney and examine history through
deeper conversations with thecurious, the explorers and the history
(01:26):
lovers out there today.
I want to share a powerfulstory about Ida B.
Wells, a pioneeringinvestigative journalist and civil
rights activist who exposedthe horrific truth about lynching
in America.
Growing up in Holly Springs,Mississippi during Reconstruction,
Wells faced the harsh realityof racial injustice from an early
(01:47):
age.
In 1892, three of her friendswere lynched in Memphis, Tennessee.
And we're going to talk moreabout those successful black business
owners who were murdered by awhite mob.
This tragic event transformedWells into a fierce anti lynching
crusader.
She launched investigationsinto lynchings all across the south,
meticulously documenting theseacts through careful research and
(02:09):
interviews.
Through her newspaper articlesand pamphlets like Southern Horrors,
Lynch Law in all its Phases,Wells revealed that lynching wasn't
about punishing criminals aswas often claimed, but was instead
a systematic form of racialterrorism used to maintain white
supremacy.
Her investigations showed thatmany victims were successful black
(02:33):
business people or those whochallenged racial inequality.
Despite death threats thatforced her to relocate from Memphis
to Chicago, Wells continuedher anti lynching campaign.
For decades.
She traveled across Americaand even to Europe speaking out against
these injuries, justices andorganizing for civil rights.
Her fearless reporting helpedlay the groundwork for the modern
(02:54):
civil rights movement andorganizations like the naacp.
Today we're diving deeper intoWells origin story and the event
that turned her from anoutspoken lady of Memphis to an unstoppable
force shining the light oftruth wherever she went.
(03:21):
Just before we go on and westart moving into the main topic,
we want to let listeners knowthat this may be a slightly sensitive
topic because we are talkingon the 1890s, early 1900s and the
topic of lynching.
So just kind of a heads up foryour parents, you know, if you have
kids in the car, if you wantto listen to this at a later time,
we just wanted to let you guysknow in advance.
(03:42):
Yeah, about 12 years old is agood cutoff for this type of information.
All right, Jen, so you haddone a fair amount of research, learned
a whole lot about the lynchingthat later became known as the People's
Grocery lynching.
Now, this was a pivotal eventfor Ida B.
(04:04):
Wells, and you had learnedabout this through your work with
the local Memphisorganization, lsp, which is the Lynching
Sites Project.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about kind of how you
quickly how you started withlsp, but then really People's Grocery
and how that kind of sparkedIda B.
Wells and all her activismthat came out afterwards.
(04:27):
Okay, that's a lot, but thank you.
This is a deep topic.
So moving to Memphis, gettinga master's degree of history, I saw
a flyer for this 100thanniversary of a lynching that happened
here in Memphis.
It was a 1917 lynching, sothis was 2017.
(04:48):
And I thought, oh, I should goto this.
Lynching is a Southernhistorical thing that I should know
more about.
And since I'm getting amaster's degree of history, I should
learn more about this.
So when I went to this was thelynching of L Persons that happened
here in Memphis.
When I went to that event, Imet these people who were part of
(05:09):
putting on this event, andthey were the lynching side project
of Memphis, and they werereally inspired by Bryan Stevenson
and the Equal Justice Initiative.
So if you understand theLegacy Museum and what he.
His work that he does inAlabama, this all ties together.
And he had come to Memphis andhe had told the people that Shelby
(05:32):
county had more lynchings thanany other county in Tennessee.
And so it was a group ofpeople who wanted to get together
and commemorate that, findjustice for that.
And part of that in my work asa historian is I volunteered my services
as a researcher to help writethese historic markers.
Primary source.
(05:53):
And that's the work I reallydo with lsp.
Yeah.
And Jen actually, and just alittle brag on her, she actually
got a historic marker put upin downtown Memphis, like, for the
first documented lynching everthat happened in here in Memphis.
And so that was something thatshe did kind of, I guess, as a project
for her master's degree.
But she kind of ran point onit, got all the wording, worked with
(06:16):
the organizations and all that stuff.
And then actually, just afterwe moved, she came back when they
finally kind of for the unveiling.
So she did a lot with this.
LSP was kind of was therealong the way as well.
Now, what's the kind ofgenesis of People's Grocery lynching?
(06:40):
So there's been such a change.
When you think of Women'sHistory Month and you think of these
historic women who have reallymade an impact on American history,
Ida B.
Wells kind of rises to the top.
She's one of these people, andpeople don't know much about her,
but they're learning moreabout her.
Like, what did she do?
What was so foundational toher work?
(07:02):
And she's from Memphis, andMemphis has done a great job in these
regions recent years ofhonoring her, spotlighting her.
They put a statue up to herdowntown and information.
But for this lynching, thisparticular lynching of 1892, this
is the spark of starting Ida B.
Wells on her whole activism campaign.
(07:23):
This event made her who she is today.
So if you want to learn aboutIda B.
Wells, this woman that's soimpactful to American history, this
event is what did it.
And I would say it's becauseof how close she was to the people
who were killed.
So this is 1892.
And like Scott had said whenhe first opened, a lot of these lynchings
(07:45):
are tied to economics.
And this is an economic lynching.
So you'll get some forsexuality, especially white women
being or accusing black men ofoverstepping some social norm, whether
it's stepping on their foot orpropositioning them or touching,
(08:07):
putting their hands on them.
There's a lot of lynchingsthat have to do with that.
But I would say double thelynchings are economic.
So this is an economic lynching.
So in 1892, this is about 30years after the Civil War, there
is the outskirts of Memphis iscalled the Curve.
(08:28):
And so it's not incorporatedin the city, it's the outskirts.
Today, it's more inside the city.
But in 1892.
Yeah.
And you have a white grocerand a black grocer right across the
street from each other.
And the white grocer and theblack grocer compete for the same
business, which is the blackcommunity in the area.
(08:49):
And the black grocer is owned.
It's like a co op.
It's kind of owned by 10 black men.
And one of those men is Thomas Moss.
And Thomas Moss is a.
A middle class black man.
He is a postal work.
He is a part owner of this grocery.
He does the books for this grocery.
(09:09):
And because Ida B.
Wells is also a well educatedblack woman and writing a pamphlet
with investigationaljournalism, they're friends.
Yeah, right.
They went in the same circles.
Because she was.
Wasn't she like godmother tohis daughters or something like that?
Yeah, she was Godmother to his children.
And so it's like you're in thesame standing.
(09:33):
You're in the same social normstanding, so you're friends with
each other.
There's not a lot of people in1892 in Memphis, and so they're close.
So what happens in March of 1892?
We're right in the same time frame.
This is when the weatherstarts to get nice in Memphis, right?
And there's two boys out frontof the People's Grocery.
(09:55):
That's the name of the blackgrocery store, which is again across
the street from the whitegrocery store.
There's two boys, a black boyand a white boy.
The black boy is Armed Summer Harris.
The white boy is Cornelius Hearst.
And they get into a fight overa game of marbles because the black
boy won.
And when the black boy wins,the white boy is upset by this.
(10:15):
And the white boy's fathersteps in and begins beating the black
boy right in front of thePeople's Grocery.
So the two workers, the twoblack workers in the People's Grocery,
notice this and go outside andto defend the black boy.
And that's William Stewart andCalvin McDowell.
(10:36):
Remember those names?
So they're there from the verybeginning, and they come to the defense
of the black boy.
And more black and whitepeople get involved in this fight.
And at one point, the owner ofthe white grocery store, William
Barnett, comes out, gets apart of it, and he claims to have
been clubbed, and he claimsthat he was clubbed or hit by Will
(10:59):
Stewart.
So I want to emphasize this,that I just told the story on the
radio in Memphis and I gotsome kind of hate messages that I
wasn't telling the white perspective.
And I want to make sure youunderstand I'm telling both perspectives,
the truth, the facts.
There's no, you know, peoplealways say, and you and I have said
(11:19):
it right, is that there's.
There's three sides to every story.
There's the one person's side,there's the other person's side,
Then there's the.
Then there's the truth, right,in what you relay.
And you do such a good job ofthis, of saying, here's the facts,
right?
I can't give the perspectiveof William Barnett unless he wrote
(11:39):
a journal, and then somebodypublished that journal at a later
time of, like, this is why Iwent out there.
Like, we can't say that.
And there's many kind of quoteunquote historians who do that a
little too often.
But you always do a really,really good job of kind of stating
the facts, giving the contextof the time with the facts as kind
(12:01):
of like the foil that drivesus through this event.
Yes.
I will stress it, William.
Will Stewart never admitted to this.
He never said that he did this.
But this is Barnett, the whitegrocer, is claiming that Will Stewart,
the black worker and partialowner of People's Grocery, did this.
So the very next day, March3rd, Barnett, the White grocer, will
(12:24):
return to the People's Grocerywith a police officer and to arrest
William Stewart, saying thathe was hit.
I want to have him arrested.
And they're met by CalvinMcDowell again, the black worker
who helped in the verybeginning to come out.
And McDowell told him no onematching, well, Stuart's description
(12:45):
was in the store.
Basically, Stuart's not here.
And Barnett gets mad and hehits McDowell with a revolver.
So he has a gun in his handand he hits, hits him, knocks him
down, but drops the gun in the process.
And McDowell is so mad, or,you know, he's been just knocked
down, that he picks up the gunand shoots at them to get out of
(13:06):
the store.
Now, some claim he shot at Barnett.
Some claims that he just shoothim to get out of store.
Either way, he misses Barnett,he doesn't shoot him.
And let's think about it here, right?
If you're inside of a storeand you're holding a revolver like
it, it would not be difficultto hit the target that you're actually
aiming at.
Like, let's be realistic here.
Yeah.
So he's more than likely, Iwould think he's just trying to get
(13:28):
them out of the store.
Yeah.
So McDowell is arrested for this.
So he's subsequently lessarrested for doing this, for shooting
at them.
Even though we forget the partthat he was.
He was assaulted by Barnett.
Let's just forget that wholething ever happened.
But because he fired back toprotect himself and who knows what
(13:49):
he was trying to do, he'sarrested for it.
And.
But he's released on bond thevery next day.
So this is March 4th.
This is two days after theboys are playing marbles out front.
Now, warrants are going to beissued though that day for Will Stewart
because Barnett claimed to behit by him and for Armor Harris.
(14:10):
Who's Armor Harris, the littleblack boy paying marbles.
It's ridiculous.
So what you start to see hereis if you go into more of the research
is there's a judge, JudgeDubose, and he has some quotes of.
I believe in the law ofrevenge, and we need to clean out
the people's Grocery.
(14:30):
So as a judge, he's supposedto be impartial.
These are his quotes that he'ssaying so you can understand where
his allegiance and where hisjustice lies and what he's thinking
about.
This judge is white, formerConfederate soldier.
But this is what's happeningand this is the backing of Barnett,
the white grocer in his fightfor justice.
(14:54):
Now, if I remember right, inthe video, because we made a video
of this, right.
We visited the sites of wherethe People's Grocery lynching happened
and where the men weremurdered and stuff like that.
I believe you said on thevideo that this judge was eventually
ousted.
Yeah.
So the best story is, andwe'll talk about this, is he's, he's
(15:14):
ousted by the other whitelawyers of Memphis and he's, he's
impeached and he loses thenext year after this whole event
happens, the very next year.
And we'll talk more about that.
He gets, he definitely getshis, his comeuppance.
His comeuppance in the end.
So McDowell's arrested,released on bond March 4th.
(15:36):
That's two days later, March 5th.
The judge is quoted in theAvalanche Appeal, that's the Memphis
newspaper, as saying that theyneed to get rid of the high handed
rowdies in the curve.
Right.
And the other quotes that Igave you as well, and the evening
of March 5th, six armed whitemen, including a county sheriff,
(15:57):
and they recently deputizedplain clothes white civilians.
So again, they're coming intoPeople's Grocery, they're not wearing
any uniforms and they'repeople that they know, unknown, that
they've been just deputizedand they come into the People's Grocery
and there's kind of a shootoutthat happens because they're walking
(16:23):
into this people's Grocery.
These, these, the judge andthese plainclothes white men, six
of them armed with guns,shooting at the black workers in
there.
And they basically shoot back.
And when they shoot back, twowhite men are injured.
And that's the very next dayon March 6, because those two white
(16:43):
men are injured.
The judge gets hundreds ofwhite civilians, deputizes them and
they go house to house andarrest 40 black people in the curb.
And that includes ArmorHarris, a little boy playing marbles.
It includes his mother.
And it's going to include thistime Thomas Moss.
So we're going to get WillStewart arrested, Calvin McDowell
(17:05):
arrested.
The two men who've kind ofbeen involved in this whole thing
since the beginning, who ownPeople's Groceries as a co op.
But Thomas Moss is going to bearrested on March 6th.
This is four days after theMarvel incident, because he's part
owner of People's Grocery.
He's never been there for anyof these events, but he's arrested
because he, he partly owns it.
(17:26):
Now, during this time, you'regoing to get Tom, Thomas Moss's pregnant
wife is going to try to cometo the jail to bring him food.
They're going to meet withlawyers in the town, white lawyers.
And how do we help our, ourmen that have been arrested?
And they.
And the judge will not givethem access.
Judge gives them no access toseeing any of the men.
(17:50):
And this is why, again, thesewhite lawyers are going to take the
judge up on impeachmentcharges because he doesn't.
He doesn't allow any habeas corpus.
It's a habeas corpus.
He doesn't allow any legaleseto happen.
He's not upholding the law.
He's not upholding the law.
So on March 8, it comes outthat the two men who were shot in
that shootout on the 6th aregoing to survive.
(18:11):
The two white men are going to survive.
And so what they believehappen is it looks like now that
they can't be held accountablefor killing white men because they
didn't.
Because they didn't.
And so it's going to go intothis vigilante justice.
So again, they're still heldin, in jail.
(18:33):
And on the night of March 9th,like very early in the morning, 2:30
in the morning, 75 white menin black masks will surround the
Shelby County Jail.
Nine will enter and they'll start.
They'll get the keys away fromthe jailers there.
And they ask for the two men,Will Stewart and Calvin McDowell.
(18:58):
They don't make themselvesknown right away.
And so they're kind of beatingup people.
They want more and more.
And so Will Smith and KevinMcDowell come out and they go, now
we want Tommy Moss and another person.
And Thomas Moss steps forward.
A man who hasn't been to anyof these things, he just owns the
People's Grocery, stepsforward after he sees his two co
(19:19):
workers get pulled by thesemen and says, I'm Thomas Moss.
And they say, okay, we want.
And he goes, no, you're notgetting anybody else.
I'm stepping forward.
That's it.
You have the three of us.
So it's such a hero in thatmoment to me.
So they're taken.
The railroad is right alongthe jail there.
They're taking a mile up therailroad, so north of Memphis.
(19:41):
And basically, once they get There.
There's reporters there.
There's people waiting.
That's how we know what happened.
I didn't know that.
Right.
That's how we have, like,drawings of their bodies.
Yeah.
So there.
There's a.
There's a drawing from, Ithink was like published in the newspaper
or something like that that Ishow in the video.
And that's how we get ThomasMoss's last words.
(20:03):
Right.
So they beat McDowell.
McDowell struggles mightily.
Like you can imagine, he's theone who grabs the gun.
And she was like, this is abig guy.
And he.
They have to really like, he.
He takes a shotgun from one ofthe guys and tries to shoot back.
And the mob has to wrestle itfrom him.
And.
And then he's just shot topieces because he fights back.
(20:26):
And.
And it's just Will Stewart is the.
Really.
The biggest guy of them all.
And he was.
And again fought back untilthe end as well.
And then Thomas Moss is thelast, probably because he is the
most.
He's probably not as agrappler as everybody else.
(20:48):
You kind of offered himself upto prevent this mob from grabbing
anybody else that was in that jail.
And with his dying words, he'sshot in the neck.
He says, tell my people to go west.
There's no justice for them here.
And they leave their bodies there.
And again.
So how do we know those werehis last words?
I found it so interesting thatreporters met them at the location
(21:13):
where they were going to kill them.
Yeah.
It's like someone let themknow this was happening.
And this is what lynching.
People always ask, like, whatis what makes lynching a lynching?
It's that people believethey're doing justice.
They believe that they'rejustified in their actions, that
these people deserve to bekilled because they've stepped outside
(21:36):
of the social norms to such adetriment that it needs to be corrected
right away without lawful order.
And you take away theirconstitutional rights and you just
treat them like.
Without any kind of judge orjury, they.
You're.
You decide.
And it's so open.
And usually people don't wearthe masks.
(21:56):
They're very.
They feel safe in doing thisbecause they don't get any punishment
on the backside.
So that's what happened inthis case.
And we go to these locationsso you can see in the video.
We'll take you to where ThomasMoss's grave is.
Thomas Moss is buried in theoldest black cemetery in Memphis.
(22:17):
It's Zion Cemetery.
Zion Christian Cemetery.
And the other two men are alsoburied there.
Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart.
We haven't found their gravesyet, but Thomas Moss grave has been
found.
And we take you to where thelocation of the People's Grocery
is.
We take you to Ida B.
Wells statue in downtown Memphis.
We take you to her marker, andthen we take you to the actual location
(22:41):
where these three men mettheir end.
And we're going to put amarker up there.
We're going to put LSP iswriting a marker.
It should be built here soon.
And we're going to put amarker up in the same location.
You'll see us put threeAmerican flags there.
And I feel very strongly aboutputting American flags there, because
these are three Americans whonever found justice, and justice
(23:06):
has no expiration date.
And so I feel very confident,like what we're doing is a piece
of that.
I don't know if they'll neverfind justice, really.
Their lives were taken fromthem without any wrongdoing, without
any kind of lawful order.
But what we're trying to do istell their story and get their story
(23:27):
out there and get the story ofIda B.
Wells out there, because thatbrings them some kind of justice
today, because so we can learnfrom it and be better people today.
And it belongs to all of us.
It's all of our story.
So Ida B.
Wells, after this happens,because she's so close friends with
Thomas Moss, she's godmotherto his children, she starts writing,
(23:50):
and she's already ajournalist, so she starts calling
out, this killing was aboutthe grocery store.
This killing was about thewhite grocer and the competition.
And so much so that the dayafter these men are killed, the judge
says we need to send a hundredwhite people into the curve to combat
(24:15):
all the riots that are goingto happen.
Because we know now that we'vekilled their men, they're going to
the black community is goingto riot.
Well, you know what happens?
Black community doesn't riotbecause they know these hundred white
men are coming in and thesepeople actually move.
They leave.
They pack up their stuff,these black people leave.
This is what part of the greatmigration is.
(24:37):
They leave Memphis and ThePeople's Grocery, March 10, is raided
by these white they riot.
They come in there, theydestroy the People's grocery.
They take all of the productsin there.
The very next month, it'sforeclosed on, and that white grocer
got what he wanted.
His competition was gone, andall of it was done under the ruse
(25:01):
of the law with Judge Dubosebacking them up.
And so that was such ainjustice that the white Lawyers
at the time who were alsoConfederate soldiers.
I want you to know that this,the one who kind of leads the whole
(25:22):
charge.
Get his name right.
Luke Wright, Confederate soldier.
He takes Judge Dubose up onimpeachment charges, goes to Nashville,
goes to the Capitol, and he'scompletely disbarred.
He can never be a judge again.
Luke Wright, this Memphislawyer, goes on to be the Secretary
(25:45):
of War for Teddy Roosevelt.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
Like when you were telling methe story, right.
And I started making thevideo, it was wild to me.
How, how much, how many crosscrossroads, historic crossroads,
cross at this event?
Because you've never, you'veprobably never heard of it, right?
(26:05):
If you're listening to this,it's more likely than not that you've
never heard of this event before.
You maybe, if, maybe you'veheard of Ida B.
Wells.
Right?
But then when we start talkingabout anti lynching campaigns and,
and the, you know, we knowthat the justice system was kind
of pushed forward in that era,right out of the Reconstruction era.
(26:27):
Obviously it took some, quitesome time, you know, for the civil
rights movement.
But when we start talkingabout white lawyers saying, hey,
that white judge does not needto be there, basically working, running
point on ousting this judge,that is not doing what a judge should
be doing.
And then this, this lawyerbecoming the Secretary of war for
(26:48):
Teddy Roosevelt, like, there'sso many things that kind of sparked
during this event.
And from Ida B.
Wells, it was just fascinating.
Yeah, I mean, so he's oustedin June of 1893.
So this happens in March of1892, and he's ousted a year later.
And what I found mostinteresting is he tries to run again
(27:09):
for Judge in 1902.
I think people might haveforgotten about this, but he is,
he's beat by the incumbent.
It's not even a competition.
And the incumbent's name thatbeats him is Judge John T.
Moss.
Like, that was just so amazingto me.
(27:32):
So part of this work is tokind of connect the dots for people.
Why are, you know, Ida B.
Wells becomes like a suffragette.
She becomes an activist.
She starts to voice what'sgoing on, what's wrong, and she becomes
a woman of power and peoplelook up to her.
And even today, she'scelebrated for taking that stance
(27:53):
and calling out injustice inthe world.
And what was so egregious toher, what hit her so hard that she
had to do something, was herfriendship with Thomas Moss, who
was murdered in Memphis in 1892.
And that's what we like to doon Walk with History is connect those
(28:15):
dots for you and to show youthat how history is so connected
and so taking you out to thatlocation at the very end was just
for us so important to kind ofbe there and to stand there and to
know this is the locationwhere these three men fought for
their lives and that was it.
After that, their people leftthe area.
(28:39):
But the impact that they leaveon American history today, the impact
that they left with Ida B.
Wells and how she stillimpacts us all today, they resonate
in American history.
And if there is any justice,it's the justice that their story
doesn't die.
And the impact of their lives.
(29:02):
And we learn something, we do better.
We don't let that happen again.
And we don't forget who theywere, who she was in American history.
And as Memphis, like, she'sone of those people that just.
Memphis is proud to celebrateher and this is the moment that made
her who she is.
And we're.
We're proud to remember them.
(29:23):
Yeah.
And it's one of those thingsthat when you connect those dots,
you can draw a direct linefrom the People's Grocery lynching
to sparking that flame for Ida B.
Wells and all her work thatled to.
She's considered, but someconsider her kind of a co founder
of the NAACP to the civilrights movements in the 50s, Martin
(29:45):
Luther King and all the stuffthat we know a lot better.
You can draw a direct linefrom those civil rights movements
in the 50s and 60s all the wayback to Ida B.
Wells and the People's grocerylynching of 1892.
It's incredible.
It's incredible.
And that's a part of history.
It's hard to talk about, it'suncomfortable to talk about, but
(30:06):
it's important to talk about.
And we're just really proud tohave done this video.
I actually got to interviewThomas Moss great, great grandson
and have this conversationwith him and let him know how important
his ancestor is to American history.
And I just think more of that.
That is what we need today inour society is we're all in this
(30:29):
together.
History belongs to all of us.
And let's celebrate theseheroes of history and what they overcame
and sometimes how they weredrawn to such action based on friendship.
It's so important and let'snever forget it.
Absolutely.
As we wrap up today's episode,we reflect on the profound impact
(30:53):
of the People's Grocery lynching.
The brutal murders of ThomasMoss, Calvin McDowell and Henry Stewart,
three successful blackbusinessmen and friends of Ida B.
Wells weren't just individual tragedies.
They represented a turningpoint that awakened one of history's
most courageous voices againstracial terror.
(31:13):
These men's only CR crime wasrunning a successful business that
competed with the white merchants.
Their deaths transformed Wellsfrom a local teacher and journalist
into a fearless crusader whowould spend the rest of her life
documenting and exposing thetruth about lynching in America.
Their story reminds us thathistory isn't just about dates and
(31:33):
events.
It's about real people whoselives and deaths shaped the course
of our nation as well.
Wells herself wrote, the wayto right wrongs is to turn the light
of truth upon them.
By learning these stories andsharing them, we keep that light
burning.
This has been a Walk WithHistory production.
Talk With History is createdand hosted by me, Scott Benny.
(31:56):
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
Check out the show notes forlinks and references mentioned in
this episode.
Talk With History is supportedby our fans at the History Road tr.
Our eternal thanks to thoseproviding funding to help keep us
going.
Thank you to Doug withLiberty, Larry Myers and everything.
Make sure you hit that followbutton in your podcast player and
(32:17):
we'll talk to you next time.
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