Strange Times 199: Stripped, Tarred and Feathered
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Today we have twin stories of horror in Louisiana. Fear mob justice on…
July 18, 1921
When a trolley fails to stop for him, Bostonian James Stone smashes the car door, breaking the glass and bloodying his arm.
Marian McGovers, a 19-year-old telephone operator, is found in the Bronx crying hysterically. She remains hysterical for several days and is finally taken home.
During a backyard card game in Brooklyn, accusations of cheating result in a stabbing. One player is sent to the hospital while the others flee. The police find five stilettos in the yard.
The Weather: Fair and warmer today and Tuesday; moderate southwest winds.
White uniforms, you say? Jeez—I wonder what they looked like. This is a strange story because it reads so much like the Klan attacking a Black woman, but Mrs. Johnson’s race is never specified—which in the 1921 Times means they probably considered her white. History’s most famous Beulah is probably the fictional maid, who was played by white men on the radio and Black women on TV. The best known Beulah of the 1920s, however, was white—Beulah Annan, whose murder trial inspired the play “Chicago.” But that’s all in the future as far as 1921 is concerned. Why this Beulah was attacked is not even speculated on. Let your imagination run wild.
SHREVEPORT, La., July 17.—Mrs. Beulah Johnson was taken from the porch of a hotel at Tenaha, Texas, stripped, tarred and feathered, according to advices reaching here today.
The attack on Mrs. Johnson, which occurred last night, was said to have been made by masked men wearing white uniforms. They are said to have driven up to the hotel in three automobiles and filed out, displaying firearms, and to have taken the young woman into one of the cars.
The automobiles proceeded to a point several miles into the country, where Mrs. Johnson’s clothing was removed and a coat of tar and feathers was administered. She was then placed in the automobile and returned to the town.
Mrs. Johnson, who claims to have been working at the hotel as a maid and cook, says she did not know any of the men in the party.
Beating of a man named McKnight of Nacodoches, Texas, by masked men at Timpson, a nearby town, is reported here as another Saturday night development in border towns.
In this story, on the other hand, the racism is unambiguous. There were many ways for Black people to die during Jim Crow, including, “Because a white boy said a woman you know beat and choked him for swimming in the nude.”
MONROE, La., July 17.—Four negroes were killed and one white man was injured in a battle at Rayville, near Monroe, last night when a Sheriff’s posse, seeking to arrest two negro women, met resistance from armed negro men.
Trouble started at a plantation in the vicinity of Rayville Friday, when a number of small boys using a swimming hole got into an altercation with the negresses, who complained at the youngsters’ lack of clothing, and were alleged to have beaten and choked several of them. Parents obtained warrants for the arrest of the women. Deputy Sheriffs sent to serve them were forced to return and secure aid.
The blacks were alleged to have intrenched themselves, and to have stood off the attacking party with rifle fire for some time. Monroe Ferguson, a member of the posse, was hit in the thigh but the posse marksmen killed Cleo Collins, Charles Kelly, Scott Sheffield and William Gibbs.
