Manuscript Letter From A Mississippi Law Enforcement Officer Describing Racial Violence And Efforts To Prevent A Lynching, 1882

JOHN [NO LAST NAME PROVIDED]

Publication: Letter written by a Law Enforcement Officer named John, 1882, Greenwood, Mississippi

Handwritten letter dated August 1, 1882, in Greenwood, Mississippi, signed simply, "John," and addressed to "My darling precious Cora." The letter covers both sides of a 12.5" x 8" sheet, as well as an additional scrap measuring about 2.5" x 5.5", approximately 700 words in all. The writer refers to himself in the letter as "an officer" and likely worked for the Leflore County Sheriff. Most of the letter describes an incident in which he was called to the hamlet of Shellmound "to settle a disturbance between the white people and negroes." A white man had killed a black man and been arrested, but "the negroes was cutting up and making a good many threats and got the whites excited. They sent runners up the river and down here for help to guard the young man that night." John gathered a group of men and went to Smallmound, where he found a white crowd "had got after a negro, a brother to the one that got killed and wanted to mob him." The man escaped, but "they were out all night nearly hunting him but never found him. They shot at one or two others and wounded one slightly. They had the negroes so frightened that it was impossible to get any of the witnesses." Nonetheless, the white offender was held pending trial, and the crowd dispersed "pretending that they were going to disband." Instead, they continued their manhunt until "they ran up on a negro and killed him." John, meanwhile, was two miles away protecting the original offender's father (who was afraid of being attacked by the victim's family) when yet another black man was taken captive by the white vigilantes. John writes: "I was afraid they were going to kill him too and I set up nearly all night to keep them from hurting him. Being an officer, I managed to keep him safe until next morning. I brought him on to Greenwood for I knew he would be killed if I left him up there. He is in town now. Told me this morning that God would bless me for protecting him." A chilling and rare first-person account by a law enforcement officer tasked with quelling racial violence in the post-Reconstruction South. Letter is stained but fully legible, in a clear hand.

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