- President Obama
- Attorney General Eric Holder
- Michael Brown
- Missouri
- Ferguson
- Darren Wilson
- Cleo Wright
- Sikeston
- Charleston
- Grace Sturgeon
- Ardella Wright
- University Press of Kentucky
- St. Louis
- Terry Teachout
- New York Times
- Marshall Currin
- Southwest Missouri State University
- Emory University
- Roger Corman
- William Shatner
- The Intruder
- Helen Currin
- Carol Anderson
The Lynching of Cleo Wright, by Dominic J. Capeci, Jr. (The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 1998, 274 pages).
Book Review by Dennis Moore
August 25, 2014 (San Diego's East County) - Terry Teachout, a New York Times critic, playwright, and inveterate blogger, and I have something in common. He and I were both born in the “bootheel” of Missouri, he in Sikeston and I in Charleston – in the area of one of the most tragic and heinous lynchings in the annals of America; the lynching of Cleo Wright. We both, also have weighed in on Dominic J. Capeci’s book; The Lynching of Cleo Wright, which has been described as “a creatively conceptualized anatomy of a lynching, and “Capeci places the lynching of Cleo Wright within the context of the city of Sikeston, the state of Missouri, and the nation.” This book should also be viewed in context with the ongoing furor and debate of Ferguson, Missouri and the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white policeman.
Having been born in Charleston, Missouri, just 14 miles from where this infamous Cleo Wright lynching occurred, I have actually spoken to someone identified in Capeci’s book, and grew up around him. This person, Marshall Currin, was recognized as one of the leading black civil rights leaders in Charleston, and the state of Missouri. As a matter of fact, after the lynching of Cleo Wright and the ensuing tension and uproar throughout the state and country, the Governor of the State of Missouri invited Currin and other black ministers and leaders from throughout the state to the State Capital for a meeting in an attempt to quell the unrest. I had no idea at the time that this quiet and unassuming man that was serving me hamburgers and root beer sodas at their family restaurant in Charleston, had played such a prominent role in history and civil rights. The author actually indicates in the bibliography of the book that he interviewed the wife of Marshall Currin, Helen Currin, in Charleston on May 19, 1988. I remember her well, as we used to refer to her as “Ms. Helen.” I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Capeci was interviewing Helen Currin!
Dominic J. Capeci, Jr., professor of history at Southwest Missouri State University, and the editor of Detroit and the ‘Good War,’ concludes that the Sikeston event contributed more to the subsequent history of civil rights and race relations than any other in the state of Missouri, as stated by Richard S. Kirkendall. Now, and some 70 years later, the recent and ongoing racial strife in Ferguson, Missouri is like Déjà vu. Ironically, the killings of Cleo Wright in 1942 and Michael Brown in 2014 in Missouri, started the same way, with both of these black males being stopped by police in a car as they were walking down the street.
On January 25, 1942, black oil mill worker Cleo Wright allegedly assaulted a white woman in her home in Sikeston, Missouri, and nearly killed the first police officer who tried to arrest him. An angry mob then hauled Wright out of jail and dragged him through the streets of Sikeston before burning him alive. This, according to Capeci. Wright was actually tied to the bumper of a car and dragged through the streets of Sikeston, with eight bullet holes in him, and then deposited in front of a black church while they were having service, and then doused with five gallons of gasoline and burned alive. I can’t begin to imagine what horror and pain that scene must have been like for the parishioners worshipping God, or the agony and pain that Wright felt and endured! The author writes of a mass exodus of blacks from Sikeston, after viewing this brutal scene, stating; “Blacks who happened upon Wright’s dragging and burning never forgot, and youthful witnesses experienced nightmares for some time afterward.”
Capeci gives a graphic and horrific depiction of the actual assault of Grace Sturgeon in his book The Lynching of Cleo Wright, as he states: “The bloodshed began early Sunday morning, January 25, at 847 East Kathleen Avenue in the so-called shoe factory district of southeast Sikeston. There, Grace Sturgeon resided with her eight-year-old son Jimmy and her sister-in-law Lavern Sturgeon, sharing the house while their husbands – brothers James and John – served in the armed forces. Grace Sturgeon awoke first, first hearing noise in the kitchen around 1:00 A.M., where someone attempted to open the back door by cutting its glass and reaching in to undo its lock. Thirty minutes later she heard the bedroom window being raised and warned the intruder to come no farther. She sat up as a man entered the room, cursing her and waking Laverne, who thought Grace had had a nightmare until she saw the stranger and heard him say, ‘Shut your mouth or I’ll kill you.’” Mind you, this is based on numerous interviews that Capeci would later have with Grace and Laverne Sturgeon, as well as James Sturgeon. It is interesting to note that neither of these women have ever positively identified Cleo Wright as the intruder that entered their home that night and assaulted Grace Sturgeon.
The author further describes the actual assault of Grace Sturgeon: “Grace Sturgeon turned to face her attacker, who reacted to her defiance like a ‘mad bee.’ Spat upon and threatened, she blocked his six-inch folding knife from cutting her throat, nearly losing three fingers on the hand that saved her life and surprising him with her strength. Staggering under a barehanded blow to the head, she fought on, ‘a stout S.O.B.,’ he uttered in amazement before slicing her lower abdomen as easily as one could make ‘a deep pin scratch.’ She ‘burned like fire’ as her intestines ‘just unfolded’ and fell from her body, and she wondered if her heart would follow. As she grasped her dangling insides with one hand and the front door with the other, an approaching auto frightened the assailant away. She was standing on the porch in her own blood when H.D. Davenport, her step-grandfather, arrived moments later, still in nightclothes and armed with a corn knife.” Perhaps this was a bit of editorial license on the part of Capeci, as well as more from his book! It is very curious to me that the author would mention the fact that Wright would spit on Grace Sturgeon, and later in his book allude to a possible affair between Wright and Sturgeon, even including Wright’s wife Ardella confronting Sturgeon after Wright’s death about and alleged and rumored affair, then for Capeci to downplay and minimize that possibility. There were others that actually considered that, including Wright’s cousin.
Capeci describes in his book the condition of Cleo Wright after his alleged assault on Grace Sturgeon and just prior to his being forcefully taken out of the Sikeston jail and burned alive: “Wright endured even more pain, and greater misfortune. Taken to the jail in City Hall by Beck and Whittley, he got very sick, and Beck, who discovered his gunshot wounds for the first time, called Dr. E.J. Nienstedt and an ambulance. Accompanied by his captors to the hospital, where Whittley had his arm treated before leaving his home, Wright waited a short time in the emergency room for the physician. In the basement facility, his wounds – eight bullet holes – were dressed and his broken arm set. Wright, though still conscious, received no narcotics, for Dr. Nienstedt feared that an anesthetic might prove fatal. He had withstood six blows to the head, four bullets passing completely through the midsection, right chest, and right arm, and enormous loss of blood. When visited after surgery by his in-laws, Richard and Minnie Gay, he was unconscious. Nor did he recognize his wife, Ardella, shortly before daylight, when full hospital rooms and emergency-only treatment for blacks required his removal by ambulance to his home in Sunset Addition, escorted by Policeman Grover H. Lewis.”
According to this detailed and riveting account by Capeci, very shortly after the cremation of Wright, St. Louisan Sidney R. Redmond led the way of a base of protest to meet with Missouri Governor Forrest C. Donnell. On January 29, 1942, Redmond arrived in Jefferson City with eighty-seven persons. Their names, reading like a Who’s Who of Missouri’s black elite, included St. Joseph’s Dr. William A. Simms, Charleston restaurateur Marshall Currin, Kansas City Call editor C.A. Franklin, St. Louis attorney R.L. Witherspoon, Columbia’s Rev. Ernest S. Redd, and Jefferson City’s Professor Lorenzo J. Greene. The eyes of the world were on Sikeston and Charleston, Missouri, just as they are now on Ferguson, Missouri in the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown at the hands of a white policeman.
Wright’s death was unfortunately, not unique in American history, but what his death meant in the larger context of life in the twentieth-century is an important and compelling story. After the lynching, the U.S. Justice Department was forced to become involved in civil rights concerns for the first time, provoking a national reaction to violence on the home front at a time when the country was battling for democracy in Europe, so says Capeci. As in the case of President Obama dispatching Attorney General Eric Holder to St. Louis (Ferguson) to oversee and assess the Michael Brown situation, Capeci states: “President Roosevelt, through the United States attorney general, set precedent for similar reasons. Francis Biddle reacted to what became over three weeks a nationwide outcry. Politics, public opinion, black protest, and war diplomacy made him ‘vitally interested in this case.’ He knew, too, that NAACP and Justice Department representatives had conferred several times during the same period. Quickly, then, Biddle agreed with Victor W. Rotnem, head of the department’s Civil Rights Section (CRS), and Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge, director of its Criminal Division – which included the CRS – that the lynching was more than a ‘local problem.’ Distressed by Japanese propaganda depicting Wright’s death as an indication of what East Indians might expect if democracies won the war, on February 10 Biddle ordered an FBI probe into the incident.” From reading Capeci’s book, it would be fair to say that the situation in Ferguson is like Déjà vu.
Capeci unravels the tragic story of Wright’s life on several stages, showing how these acts of violence were indicative not only of racial tension but of the clash of the traditional and the modern brought about the war. At least, that is Capeci’s take on it. But there is actually something more subtle about his story as I read it, an undercurrent that Capeci may be unable to quite grasp beyond his telling of the story.
In The Lynching of Cleo Wright, Capeci draws from a wide range of archival sources and personal interviews with actual participants and spectators at this tragic event to draw vivid portraits of Wright, his victims, law-enforcement officials, and members of the lynch mob. Capeci places Wright in the larger context of southern racial violence and shows the significance of his death in local, state, and national history during the most important crisis of the twentieth century. It is ironic, and one could certainly argue the point that some 70 years after the lynching of Cleo Wright, a similar pattern is being played out some 150 miles north of Sikeston with the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white policeman, and just like with Wright, the Governor of Missouri and the Justice Department felt compelled to get involved.
In his book the author chronicles a history of lynchings throughout the state of Missouri, including that of a Roosevelt Grigsby in nearby Charleston during the mid-1920s for allegedly attempting to rape a sixteen-year-old white girl.
The aforementioned Terry Teachout, in his Close to Home assessment of Capeci’s The Lynching of Cleo Wright in the Books section of The New York Times, May 30, 1999, had this to say: “It is a strange experience to learn about one’s hometown by reading a scholarly monograph, especially one written in a style that is two parts Joe Friday and one part academic lingo. Yet it was only by reading Capeci’s book that I learned of the myriad ways in which Wright’s ugly death overlapped with the idyllic small-town life of my boyhood. And though I spent countless hours talking with my best friend about everything under the sun, he never told me that his aunt was the woman Wright had knifed, or that it happened a half-dozen blocks from my childhood home, where my mother lives to this day.”
To put this story and area in the bootheel of Missouri in perspective, one need only to view YouTube video of Emory University Associate Professor of African American Studies, Carol Anderson, describing here. Also, to capture a sense of what Sikeston and Charleston was like around the time of the lynching of Cleo Wright, famed Hollywood director Roger Corman directed a movie in Charleston in 1962 called The Intruder, starring William Shatner of Star Trek fame. Parts of the movie was actually filmed at the high school in Charleston that I graduated from, and includes friends that I grew up with.
As I am depicted in this photo taken more than 50 years ago of Mr. Mullins' Lincoln School in Charleston Future Farmers of America (FFA) class along with my classmates, it is a resounding reminder of our affinity with Sikeston, but at this time not aware of the gruesome killing of Cleo Wright just 14 miles away. Sure, the aforementioned Marshall Currin was aware of it, but it was something that he chose not to share with us. Perhaps he wanted to spare us of the trauma of such an event at such a young and impressionable age. Very possibly everyone pictured here were served at Marshall Currin's (brother Marshall) restaurant in Charleston. It is ironic that after the aforementioned picture of me and my classmates were taken at Lincoln school in Charleston, the integration of Charleston High was brought about by the lawsuit here.
The movie was about the forced integration of the high school, and the racial strife that ensued. See YouTube movie. The aforementioned Marshall Currin makes a cameo appearance in this movie, standing in front of a church with a number of young people that I actually went to school and grew up with. There is a scene in this movie in which Klansmen blew up the church, killing the pastor. Corman would later say that he and his film crew would have to sneak out of Charleston under the cover of darkness, due to the filming of this movie, indicating fear for their wellbeing.
The iconic and soulful singer Billie Holiday puts this book and the subject of lynching in perspective with her song "Strange Fruit" here.
This is a fascinating book and story by Capeci, if for no other reason than to see if history repeats itself. It is also a disturbing story of man’s inhumanity to man.
Dennis Moore is an Associate Editor for the East County Magazine in San Diego and the book review editor for SDWriteway, an online newsletter for writers in San Diego that has partnered with the East County Magazine. He is also the author of a book about Chicago politics; “The City That Works: Power, Politics and Corruption in Chicago.” He can be contacted at contractsagency@gmail.com or you can follow him on Twitter at: @DennisMoore8.
Comments
“Justice For My Son Bryan Lamar Johns”
Justice For My Son Bryan Lamar Johns
"The Lynching of Bryan Lamar Johns"
In a recent phone conversation made to me by Raymond Ivy, I could feel the anguish that Mr. Ivy had for the lynching of his son Bryan Lamar Johns felt, as any parent would feel over the untimely death of his son. My heart goes out to him and I trust that all investigation entities will bring justice to his family. As I do not know all the details of this tragedy, I can only go on what Mr. Ivy has shared with me.
"Racism Still In Missouri Bootheel in 2016"
CHARGES FILED IN ATTACKS AGAINST BLACKS
Seven Latino gang members have been charged with firebombing the homes of black families in a Boyle Heights housing prohect, an attack that prosecutors allege was designed to drive African Americans out of the neighborhood, according to a Los Angeles Times story by Kate Mather, Brittny Mejia and Hector Becerra, dated July 8, 2016. A federal indictment unsealed Thursday describes how the gang members allegedly planned nad carried out the May 12, 2014, attack, which came at a time when families were increasingly moving back into the Ramona Gardens public housing complex after previous violence prompted most African Americans to leave.
SINGLE FATHER, RAYMOND IVY AND HIS 2 LITTLE GIRLS
I cried for George Floyd!
After watching the ongoing testimony in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, I found myself crying for George Floyd and the brutal treatment that he received, which is tantamount to the brutal treatment and lynching identified in this book review.
Nope, not me.
Officers knew nothing of Floyd's background when they killed him
-- all they knew was that he was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a store. He was never tried so we don't even know if he was aware the bill was fake. But even if he did, that is not a death penalty offense The officer who knelt on his neck for 9 minutes didn't even stop after Floyd was unconscious and stopped breathing. Even the Chief of Police testified against the officer, stating his actions violated police protocol. Do you condone cold-blooded murder of any suspect by an officer, regardless of how minor the offense? As for the drugs in his system, a medical expert testified he died of lack of oxygen and that his actions prior to his death were NOT consistent with a drug overdose.
Perspective matters.
President Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act!
President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act sponsored by my hometown Congressman Bobby Rush this past week, after more than 200 past attempts to get this legislation passed. Click on link here.
Gruesome Murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin
Having watched attentively the trial of former policeman Derek Chauvin for the gruesome murder of George Floyd this week on TV, I take issue with the comments made by "8East", and I did shed tears for the other people that 8East mentioned as being murdered. The difference is that in the history of this country we have never seen the public lynching of a black man as we did of George Floyd. I direct this "8East" to the video embed in this review of a professor at Emory University in Atlanta who describes how Cleo Wright was shot 8 times and dragged behind a car in front of a black church in Missouri, and then set on fire. I trust that "8East did view this video of an earlier public lynching of a black man with an open mind In this week's televised trial of Derek Chauvin police after police and medical examiner after forensic specialist all indicated that what Chauvin did to George Floyd, even after no pulse was observed, was unconscionable. Please "8East" put your comments in the context of the embed video in this review, and then come back with a justification.
Murder?
I cried for the George Floyd family after Chauvin found guilty!
I cried again after Derek Chauvin was found guilty today on all 3 counts of murdering George Floyd, as it is some small vindication for Cleo Wright that I chronicled in this review, for his murder and lynching many years ago and before I was born. There is actually a video in subject review of a professor from Emory University in Atlanta that speaks of an earlier lynching. We can do better!
"8East"lack of compassion and dismissiveness of the death a man!
This is my last comment on this subject, especially considering the comments of "8East" in the death of George Floyd! This is not about white or black, but about a policeman continuing to press his knee down on the neck of a man for up to 3 minutes after there is no pulse! Nothing in George Floyd's past deserves the treatment, or lack of treatment, that he received from Derek Chauvin! The cries for help and mercy that George Floyd made to Derek Chauvin, and from numerous onlookers that was demonstrated in court, went unheeded. "8East" comments leaves the readers as to justifying George Floyd's death. A similar situation occured in my hometown of Chicago, when white policeman Jason Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times only minutes after the police officer got out of his squad car, including several shots after McDonald was on the ground. A Cook County Criminal Court convicted Van Dyke of 2nd degree murder in 2019, a similar fate that Derek Chauvin faces.
Hatred, Racism and Xenophobia is not new...It began in Creation
NEW FERGUSON COUNCIL MEMBERS UPBEAT
A surge of voters helped alter the racial makeup of the Ferguson City Council, and observers said Wednesday that the change creates a new energy in a community trying to find its way after months of turmoil following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. More than 29% of Ferguson voters - double the percentage from the April 2014 election - went to the polls Tuesday and elected three new City Council members, including two blacks. That means half of the six-member council will now be African-American. The lone black incumbent councilman was not for re-election. The mayor of the near 70 percent population city is white.
Department of Justice Report on Ferguson Comment to Dennis Moore
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE REPORT ON FERGUSON, MISSOURI
1 Ferguson employee has been fired, and
2 more put on leave following this damning report: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/ferguson-official-fired_n_68044...
How bad was it? This article has some of the most damning evidence including blatantly racist emails: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/doj-ferguson-report-worst_n_680...
President Trump compares Impeachment Inquiry to "Lynching"
What our president said today hurt me personally, and moved me to tears, his comparing the impeachment inquiry againt him to a "lynching". I know something about lynching, as evidenced in my subject review of this book, as well as the two videos embed in this review. President Trump indicated in his tweet today that he was being treated unfairly and was not given due process. It should be noted that this constitutionally required process of impeachment gives President Trump the opportunity to speak and give his position about the underlying claims of abuse of power, yet he refused to be interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and he has stood in the way of those wanting and willing to testify to investigators. Sure, there are some that are defenders of the president, and wants to downplay this assertion of "lynching" by President Trump, such as Senator Lyndsey Graham, but Preident Trump has a long history of defaming and marginalizing blacks and people of color. One such history is of the president condemning the so-call "Central Park Five", and making the attached statement of bringing back the death penalty.
Clearly, this president knows nothing about the sordid and painful history of lynching in this country, or does not care, but I do as evidenced by my subject review and the videos embed in it. I have been disillusioned and hurt by the words of the president, wondering about my place in this country, to hear the president compare the constitutionally prescribed process of impeachment to lynching.
President Trump has been given ample opportunity to defend himself over this impeachment matter, and he refused to face his accusers, and even kept others such as White House Counsel Don McGan from testifying. His personal attorney Michael Cohen is currently in prison from a case in which the president is identified as "Individual 1" or a co-defendant.
Perhaps the president is using this "lynching" matter as a distraction, but the term and very nature of it invokes such vile and painful thoughts and memories. One would think that the president would know better, and stop fanning the flame of dissension and divisiveness in this country, especially by making statements such as "there are good and bad people on both sides"
I am hurt and disillusioned by what our president said today, but I am hopeful that we as a people can come together and condemn such speech.
Trump also referred to the "phony emoluments clause"
which is in the Constitution. Anything he doesn't like he tries to discredit as fake or somehow a conspiracy of people out to get him. He seems incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions and errors, and his disdain for the U.S. Constitution is deeply disturbing, as is his trivializing of the term"lynching."
Sadly Dennis
Not this President.
OFFICER CHARGED WITH MURDER IN TEEN'S DEATH; VIDEO RELEASED
A white Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke, who shot a black teenager 16 times last year was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday, hours before the city released a video of the killing that many people fear could spark unrest, according to an Associated Press story by Don Babwin and Jason Keyser in the Lancaster Antelope Valley Press.
The 17-year-old teenager, Laquan McDonald, can be seen lying on the ground, moving ocasionally. At least two small puffs of smoke are seen coming off his body as the officer continues firing.
Former Police Officer
"On Earth As It Is In Hell" by Cortina Jackson
Dirty Pool
Ferguson, Missouri: Witness #40's FBI Interview and Grand Jury
Ferguson, A Broken System & US Racial Treadmill
Assistant District Attorney Kathi Alizadeh in Ferguson
3 blacks on 12 panel Grand Jury in 70% black makeup of Ferguson
Prosecutor: No Probable Cause to Indict Officer Wilson
Stanford researcher wins MacArthur 'genius' grant for race study
"Bias made tangible"
Re: Michal's comment
"Darren Wilson will not be indicted in Ferguson, Missouri"
Michal Payne's Response to KB Schaller's Comment
Ferguson Grand Jury Witness #10 Statement
KB Schaller's Latest Comment Re Dennis Moore's Review subject ma
Video: Police lied!
K. B. Schaller's Comment on Dennis Moore Review
FORENSIC EVIDENCE WEIGHED IN FERGUSON GRAND JURY DECISION
A Native American's perspective on the Cleo Wright incident
"Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil" by Lezley McSpadden
Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, who was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, has written the book; "Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, And Love of My Son Michael Brown," which I plan to write a review of. She refers to her son as "Mike Mike" in this graphic and raw book, poignantly stating: "I'm not going to lie; I've been wanting to get mad and just go fuck the world up, because my son being killed has messed my whole life up. No way should my son have left here before me. But I have to stop myself every time my anger begins to build like that. If I look at it that way too long, I'll find myself in trouble, doing something out of rage and revenge. That would be out of character, and Mike Mike would never want me to do anything like that."
A Native American's perspective on the Cleo Wright incident
"100+ Native American Women Who Changed The World"
What are we doing about this?
Ferguson, Missouri
The Lynching of Cleo Wright, by Dominic J. Capeci, Jr.
U.S. WILL INVESTIGATE FERGUSON POLICE
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