LynchingIda B. Wells-Barnett and the Outrage over the Frazier Baker Murder

By Trichita M. Chestnut

I n 1898 the Department of Justice was bombardedwith letters concerning a recent lynching in SouthCarolina.The postmaster of Lake City, Frazier Baker,

and his nearly two-year-old daughter Julia had been killedby a mob in the early hours of February 22.Two of the let-ters were from Ida B. Wells-Barnett—journalist, author,public speaker, and civil rights activist—who receivednational and international attention for her efforts toexpose, educate, and inform the public on the evils andtruths of lynching.

Lynching remains one of the most disturbing and leastunderstood atrocities in American history. Between1880 and 1941, roughly 4,179 persons were victims oflynch mobs in the United States.African American men,women, and children accounted for 3,446 victims, or82.5 percent of the total.

What constitutes a lynching? Although most peoplethink only of hanging, lynching means much more.Lynching is the killing of African Americans who were tor-tured, mutilated, burned, shot, dragged, or hung; accusedof an alleged crime by a white mob;and deprived of theirlife without due process and equal protection of the law.

This type of mob violence in America earned its nick-name in the 1770s from Virginia Quaker Charles Lynch,who authorized extralegal whippings against Tories whoharassed patriots and committed crimes during theAmerican Revolution. The practice quickly expandedacross the western frontier in the decades before the CivilWar, where many of the victims were mostly white, alongwith a number of Native Americans, Mexicans,Asians, andAfrican Americans. In the antebellum south,whites consti-tuted the majority of victims of mob violence. By the late19th century, however, lynching had become an almostexclusively southern phenomenon. During the postbel-lum and Reconstruction periods, mob violence in thesouth became a tool for maintaining the racial order.African American men, women, and children now com-posed the majority of victims of lynch violence, and thelynchings assumed an increasingly sadistic nature.AfricanAmerican men, however, were the most targeted.

In southern law, politics, and the economy, the racialhierarchy placed African Americans at the bottom andwhites at the top. Many whites believed AfricanAmericans had a dual nature—“docile and amiable whenenslaved, ferocious and murderous when free[d].”SenatorBenjamin (Ben) R.Tillman of South Carolina proclaimedthat the African American man was “a fiend, a wild beast,seeking whom he may devour.” Many southern whiteshad an acute anxiety over racial purity, and they fearedthe amalgamation of the two races.The “cry of rape” wasused as an excuse to lynch the alleged African Americanrapists for the protection of southern white women.Accusations of rape, however, accounted for only one-third of the lynchings.

In the 1890s, the number of African American menlynched escalated dramatically,as did the brutal torture ofthe victims’bodies.White mob violence often occurred inareas experiencing economic changes, and lynchingstended to occur where another lynching had alreadytaken place.These acts of violence were directed againstthe entire African American community and not just a sin-gle alleged miscreant. An African American man neverknew if he would be the next victim.

Postmaster Frazier Baker, like many other AfricanAmerican lynched victims,was not accused of or guilty ofrape but had become a target solely on the basis of hisrace and for serving in a prominent position reserved inpast decades for whites.

Baker was a former farmer and treasurer of the ColoredFarmer’s Alliance in Florence County, South Carolina, andbecame a postmaster of the Effingham post office in thatcounty on March 15, 1892. He held this position at leastuntil November 1894.Records show that he became post-master at Lake City in Williamsburg County, SouthCarolina, on July 30, 1897, upon the recommendation ofEdmund H. Deas, a Republican African American deputycollector of internal revenue also known as the “Duke ofDarlington.” On February 23, 1898, the Charleston Newsand Courier described Lake City as “a white man’s town,not over a dozen negroes living in the place, and not one

Lynching Prologue 21

Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it

seems to have fallen upon me to do so. The awful death-toll that Judge Lynch is calling every

week is appalling, not only because, of the lives it takes, [and] the rank cruelty and outrage to

the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it places against the good name

of the weak race. The Afro-American is not a bestial race. —Ida B.Wells, preface to Southern Horror

Opposite: Ida B.Wells-Barnett (left) had campaigned for federal help to fight racial violence since the early 1890s. Enraged by the lynching of FrazierBaker in February 1898, she wrote a letter to former Republican Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts (right) concerning a manuscript shehad left for the President in which she urged medical and financial aid for Mrs. Baker and her surviving children.

owning a foot of land in the corporate lim-its of the town.” Consequently, the whiteresidents were perplexed when an AfricanAmerican was appointed postmaster. LakeCity residents, like those in many othersouthern white communities at the time,resented African Americans who soughtequality through political arenas, organiza-tions, and jobs.

As a result, Baker encountered opposi-tion immediately from the “good people”ofLake City. One night when he left the postoffice with some friends,Baker was shot atfrom an ambush; on another day, someonefired shots into the post office.When Bakerassumed his position as postmaster, hemade some major changes that angeredthe white residents. First, he moved thepost office from its location of the last sixyears to a log house about a mile awayfrom town. Next, he changed the threemail deliveries to one a day. Then, after amysterious fire burned the post officedown,Baker did not receive or deliver mailfor about a week. The residents accusedBaker of administrative ignorance andincompetence, and they protested in a let-ter to the Lake City Times that was reprint-ed in the Charleston News and Courier onFebruary 12, 1898:“We have little courtesyshown us and the service is as poor as canbe.The negro is uncivil, ignorant and lazy.”A petition for Baker’s immediate removal,signed by 200 of Lake City’s “best people,”was sent to the assistant postmaster gener-al in Washington, D.C.:

We, the undersigned citizens ofLake City, S.C., do hereby respectfullyrequest that you have Frazier B. Baker,our postmaster, removed, for the fol-lowing reasons, to wit: First. He isimpolite to ladies. Second. He isincompetent from the fact that he hasdelivered registered mail without tak-ing receipt for same. Has issuedmoney orders without charging anyfee, and he had also given out theadvise instead of the money order.Third. He has time and again allowedletters of importance to remain in theoffice for a week and sometimes amonth, notwithstanding the fact thatthey were being called daily. Fourth.

Fall 200822 Prologue

South Carolina

An 1889 Post Office map shows the South Carolina towns (highlighted here) in which Frazier Baker lived andworked: Effingham and Lake City, Williamsburg County, where he was killed on February 22, 1898, andCartersville, to which his wife, Lavinia, returned in 1942. Above: A Post Office Department entry shows hisappointment as postmaster in Lake City on July 30, 1897.

Lynching

He frequently gives out mail to per-sons that is addressed to personsother than themselves, thereby caus-ing the mail thus given out to be con-siderably delayed. Fifth. He has soldfifty 2-cent stamps for fifty cents.Sixth. He was not a resident of thiscounty when he applied for this officeand had resided here only a few dayswhen he received his commissions.”

Two separate investigations by federalpost office inspectors produced no evi-dence to substantiate the residents’ claims.Regrettably, though, some 300 or morewhite residents took the matter into theirown hands.

Around 1 a.m.on February 22, the Bakerfamily awoke to discover that a fire hadbeen deliberately set to the back of theirhome, where the local post office waslocated. Baker and his daughter Julia wereshot to death, and their bodies were left tocremate. Baker’s wife, Lavinia, and daugh-ters Rosa and Cora were each shot throughthe arm, and his son, Lincoln, was shot inthe arm and in the stomach.As the familytried to flee from their burning home, awhite mob fired upon them. Laviniadescribed the horrible scene in theCharleston News and Courier interviewthe following day:

Last night we retired between 10and 11 o’clock. About 1 o’clock Iawoke and found that the buildingwas on fire and that the fire was mak-ing rapid progress.Then I aroused myhusband. He jumped up and by thetime several shots were fired into thebuilding. I took my baby [Julia] intomy arms,called the other children andfollowed Baker, who was making forthe door. He reached the door, stuckhis head out and was instantly shotseveral times in the body and throughthe head. He groaned, reeled and fellback in the building, near the door.Almost at the same time I myself was

shot in the left arm,on which my babywas resting,and not being able to sup-port the child any longer, I dropped it.I noticed, however that it had alreadybeen killed. After remaining there afew minutes . . . the other children andmyself fled to the house of my neigh-bor for protection.We got there alive,but three of my [remaining] five chil-dren and myself are wounded.

When news of the atrocity spread, out-raged citizens wrote to the President,mem-bers of Congress, and the Department ofJustice demanding federal help to fightracial violence.Ida B.Wells-Barnett was oneof them. She was known as the mother ofthe antilynching movement and had beguna lifelong crusade against lynching afterthree of her friends were killed in 1892 inMemphis, Tennessee. Up to that point, asshe later reflected in her autobiography,Crusade for Justice, she, like many otherswho read in newspapers about lynchingsin the south, “accepted the idea . . . thatalthough lynching was irregular and con-trary to law and order, unreasoning angerover the terrible crime of rape led to thelynching.”She further accepted the reason-ing that “perhaps the brute deserved deathanyhow and the mob was justified in tak-ing his life.” After the lynching of herfriends, Wells-Barnett devoted herself toinvestigating white racial violence anddisproving the rape arguments that wereused to justify lynching. No one hadaccused her friends of any sexual crime.Their only real crime, she concluded, wasthat the economic success of their gro-cery store rivaled a white grocer in thesame district.

After the Frazier murders, Wells-Barnettimmediately expressed her frustrations togovernment officials. In a undated two-page letter to former Republican SenatorHenry Dawes of Massachusetts, she urgedPresident William McKinley to make a rec-ommendation to Congress regarding amanuscript (most likely referencing the

lynching of the postmaster and his daugh-ter) she had left with the former senator.She asked for support for the injuredwidow and her children, who requiredmedical and financial aid as well as food,shelter, and clothing.

A second undated letter written to thePresident, which was later forwarded tothe Department of Justice for furtherinvestigation, still petitioned in behalf ofMrs. Baker and her children.This time shealso addressed the issue of the federalgovernment’s involvement in fightingSpanish oppression in Cuba while ignor-ing the oppression of Americans, especial-ly African American victims of lynchmobs. An African American editor for theLexington (Kentucky) Standard wrotethat if to “Remember the Maine [was] thewhite man’s watch-word, [then] remem-bering the murder of postmaster Baker . . .should be the Negro’s.” Wells-Barnettagreed and wrote:

For nearly two years the over-whelming sentiment of the Americanpeople has demanded that even at therisk of provoking war, this nationinterfere with the political policy of afriendly nation. We defend ourselvesby declaring against barbarism ofSpanish oppression. Strange that thissentiment so exercised over bar-barism in Cuba should rest so com-plaisant over barbarism at home.During the past fifteen years morethan 2500 men, women, and childrenhave been put to death through lynch-ings, hangings, shooting, drowningand burning alive.All this in our ownland under our own flag and yet ourgovernment has not taken the firststep to stop the slaughter. YourMemoralists therefore respectfullysuggest Justice like Charity shouldbegin at home.

Wells-Barnett appealed on behalf of theIda B. Wells Woman’s Club of Chicago,Illinois, for the President to apprehend andpunish those responsible for the shootingand “recommend a national enactment toprotect, men, women and children fromthe awful epidemic of mob law.” They

Prologue 23

Fall 200824 Prologue

During the investigation in April 1898, U.S. attorney Abial Lathrop reported to the Attorney General that the“whole community is absolutely terrorized,” and that in spite of his offers of immunity from prosecution, itwould be essential to offer protection to witnesses.

Left: Wells and her Woman’s Club formally petitioned Congress in behalf of Baker’s widow and surviving children on March 3, 1898, urging federal action and pro-tection. Right: Report No. 1379 to the 55th Congress, 2nd session, dated May 19, 1898, contains the Postmaster General’s report recommending that H. Res. 171 bepassed to provide compensation to Baker’s widow.

News of the atrocity against Frazier Baker and hisfamily was widely reported. An artist’s depictionappeared in the Boston Post on August 10, 1899, soonafter his widow relocated there.

Lynching

sought support for the widow and chil-dren stating that:

You cannot bring back the husbandand father, nor can you restore to thebroken hearted mother the babe thatwas shot to death in her arms, but thenation owes that family the supportand maintenance of which they weredeprived by that brutal mob, in so faras money can requite their loss, thesehelpless ones should be indemnified.

She noted that the President had alreadyset a precedent when the United Statespaid considerable sums of money toMexico and Italy after the lynchings of oneMexican and three Italian citizens monthsbefore the Baker lynching. Furthermore,the heirs of the three lynched Italians inNew Orleans had been paid $25,000.

Wells-Barnett went even further. InMarch, she and a delegation that includedsome of Chicago’s leading citizens andeight congressmen from the Chicago areatraveled to Washington, D.C., on behalf ofthe citizens of Chicago. On March 22, shemet with President McKinley, he receivedher and her companions “very courteous-ly.” She later wrote in her autobiographythat he “listened to my plea [and] acceptedthe resolutions which had been sent by thecitizens of Chicago.”He then reassured herthat she could “report back home that theyhad already placed some of the finest oftheir secret service agents in the effort todiscover and prosecute the lynchers of theblack postmaster.”

She remained in Washington for anoth-er five weeks in an effort to have theonly African American in Congress,Representative George Henry White ofNorth Carolina, withdraw a bill that pro-vided a $1,000 indemnity for Baker’swidow, Lavinia, and their five survivingchildren. Wells-Barnett thought the billwas too weak, so she worked with IllinoisRepresentative William E. Lorimer on abill that granted a larger amount of moneyto the family.

White had introduced the joint resolu-tion (H. Res. 171) on March 3, 1898, andthe next day, he referred the resolution tothe Committee on the Post-Office and

Post-Roads. Immediately, the committeebegan receiving petitions and resolutionsfrom organizations and clubs from acrossthe country protesting the lynching, ask-ing for compensation for the survivingBaker family, and requesting the apprehen-sion and conviction of the responsible per-sons. Among the resolutions sent were onefrom the Ida B. Wells Woman’s Club andone from the Colored Citizens of Chicago,on which her husband, Ferdinand, affixedhis name.

Although the committee submittedReport No. 1379, recommending that thejoint resolution be passed, the Bakersnever received any money. Because thelynching had occurred in the midst ofanother national crisis—the explosion ofthe USS Maine in Havana harbor onFebruary 15—Congress was preoccupiedwith imminent war with Spain.

Wells-Barnett was advised by Lorimerto go back home to Chicago and returnlater in December, as “it would be hope-less to expect any action now that all thisexcitement was up.” She returned homeonly to find that national attention sur-rounding the lynching had diminishedamong her people, and the matter of herplan to return to Washington was not dis-cussed again.This lack of national aware-ness frustrated her, as she wrote in herautobiography:

Here again was an illustration ofhow our own people seem to stand inthe way of any accomplishment offederal intervention against lynching.They failed to take up the subject oforganizing their forces and raisingmoney for the purpose of sending meback to lobby for the desired results.

National attention was brought to thecase when the state of South Carolinafailed to prosecute any of the guilty per-sons,and the U.S.District of South Carolinastepped in, with the aid of the Office ofPost Office Inspector. Unlike previouslynching murder cases, the Baker caseattracted federal attention because itinvolved a federal employee. From thebeginning of the 14 months of extensiveinvestigation, the U.S. attorney for the

Charleston district, Abial Lathrop, realizedthe challenge the Department of Justiceand post office inspectors would be facingin prosecuting the guilty parties, despitepublic sentiment to have them punished.The general consensus in Lake City wasone that none of their residents had any-thing to do with the lynching,and businesswent on as if nothing had happened.Theonly thing that concerned them was howthey were going to get their mail. DistrictAttorney Lathrop wrote to AttorneyGeneral John William Griggs on March 5:

There is,as you have no doubt seen,a satisfactory public expression offeeling throughout this State in regardto this case, and a general desire onthe part of the people to have theguilty parties properly punished. Butwhile this is true in a general way, wehave already found that we can notexpect to receive any substantial assis-tance from the people of that immedi-ately vicinity.Those who are not impli-cated themselves know that relativesand friends are likely to be, and thiswill deter them from acting in thepremises, so that the only real advan-tage which we shall obtain from thepublic sentiment above referred to,will be in the probability of securing ajury that will be willing to render aproper verdict, but we shall have todepend upon our own efforts to pro-cure the necessary evidence.

It became evident early on in the casethat witnesses were unwilling to give testi-mony unless they were given protection.These eyewitnesses were living in the areaat the time of the lynching and had eitherwitnessed the burning of the home, heardgunshots, or attended meetings where dis-cussions were made to murder the post-master. As a result, they were too fright-ened to identify any of the guilty personsinvolved. Charleston post office inspectorsJohn W. Bulla and H.T.B. Moye wrote toLathrop that no witnesses would testifyagainst any lynchers unless they receivedhelp to get out of the community and wereprovided with financial assistance.Withoutthese witnesses, the prosecution could not

Prologue 25

justify issuing any arrest warrants. Lathropcould offer these witnesses immunity andsought the attorney general’s approval toprovide them with financial provisions. Healso asked that Baker’s widow, their surviv-ing children,and their friends “be treated inthe same manner” as the witnesses andrelocated from the area and given financialassistance.This was the first and only timefinancial restitution for the surviving Bakerfamily was mentioned in the attorney gen-eral’s correspondence.

By early July 1898, Lathrop had arrested10 white men and charged them with con-spiracy to injure or intimidate citizens inthe free exercise of their civil rights.Threemore would later be arrested and chargedwith the lynching of the postmaster.Two ofthe conspirators confessed and expressedtheir willingness to testify for the prosecu-tion against the others. During the prelimi-nary examination held before the U.S.com-missioner on July 1, one of the accused,Joseph Newham, told of the late-nightmeeting at Henry Stokes’s store, where itwas decided that Baker would be killed.Atthe preliminary examination, he gave thefollowing account:

I went to Lake City Monday to beready for the work fixed for that night. . . and at midnight I went to Stokes’sstore. Stokes, [Moultrie] Epps, [Early]Lee, Godard and [Dunham] Singletarywere there at the time and [Ezra]McKnight came in later. . . .We talkedthere for a short time,and then startedout to do the work.We went by HenryGodwin’s store, where we stopped,and got a bucket of kerosene oil and abig bag of dry shavings.We then wenton to the postoffice. All the men hadarms. Some had shotguns and othershad rifles. . . . [Lee and I] took the shav-ings and placed them near the chim-ney, and then poured a quantity of oilon the pile. . . . I held the guns and Leeset fire to the shavings. After the pileblazed up I ran away to the woods,anda little later I heard screams from thehouse.Then I heard the crowd shoot-ing. Alonzo Rogers, Epps, Godard,Stokes, [Martin] Ward, [William]Webster, McKnight, Charley Joiner, Lee

and myself were the only ones I sawthat night at the postoffice. The mendisappeared after the shooting. I leftwith Rogers,Webster and Ward.

How damaging was Newham’s testimo-ny? It was convincing enough for theCharleston federal district attorney general’soffice to take the case to a federal grandjury.There was now sufficient evidence tocharge the 13 men with conspiracy todeprive Frazier and Julia Baker of their civilrights. Lathrop observed that it would becritical to the government’s case to corrob-orate the testimony of the accomplices withother witnesses before the case went to thegrand jury because it was “evident that there

will be no lack of testimony in behalf of thedefendants to prove their good characterand to impeach every Government wit-ness.”A couple of days later, the defendantssubmitted a petition for a writ of habeascorpus, which included many affidavitsdeclaring that some of them were not pres-ent in the mob the night Baker and hisdaughter were murdered. After hearingtheir case, the judge granted bail for thedefendants at $2,000 each.

In preparing the case to go to trial inApril 1899, the Department of Justicehired a special officer, B. W. Bell, to con-duct investigations. In one of his earlyreports, Bell wrote to Lathrop that “fromresults obtained so far in my investigation

Fall 200826 Prologue

Below, left: U.S.Attorney Lathrop informed the attorney general in his letter of June 29, 1898, of the arrest ofsix individuals in the case of the lynching of Frazier Baker.

Below, right: The preliminary testimony of Joseph P. Newham of Lake City was reported in the Charleston Newsand Courier on July 2, 1898. Newham, who escaped prosecution by turning state’s evidence against the 11other defendants, recounted the events of the lynching in great detail.

Opposite: In an April 19, 1899, telegram to the attorney general, Special Officer B.W. Bell expressed full con-fidence in the strength of the evidence, stating that “If jury does not convict it will be utterly useless herafter[sic] to attempt convictions in this state for similar offences.”

Lynching

of the Lake City matter, I feel greatlyencouraged in believing that I will, with-out doubt, be able to furnish an abun-dance of unimpeachable testimony toconvict all the parities implicated.” Hewas certain that if the five or six witness-es could be moved away from the influ-ence of the defendants and their friends,he would be able to build a strong casewithout having to depend on any more ofthe conspirators confessing their guilt.

Bell’s investigation took him fromCharleston to Washington, D.C., and as faraway as Havana, Cuba, where he inter-viewed three defendants who had enlistedin the Army the morning of the Bakerlynching. Before the case went to the fed-

eral grand jury, the U.S. marshal asked theattorney general for extra deputy marshalsbecause friends of the defendants weremaking threats against witnesses. Suchthreats did nothing to discourage the grandjury from returning a 47-page indictmentagainst the 13 defendants in less than anhour. The government’s prosecution ofUnited States v. Martin V. Ward, et al.began on Monday, April 10, 1899.

Once the jurors were selected, Lathropconsidered the all-white male jury to be“composed of representative businessmen from nearly every section of theState, and it was generally conceded to beone of the best juries ever empanelled forthe trial of any case in this State.” Many

witnesses were called on behalf of thegovernment, including four members ofthe Baker family—Lavinia, Rosa, Cora, andLincoln—who testified about the murderof their father and sister as well as theinjuries they suffered.

As a result of turning state’s evidenceagainst the other 11 defendants, Newhamand Early Lee escaped prosecution by thegovernment.The district attorneys set outto prove a well-constructed open-and-shutmurder case. The 11 defendants wereindicted for the original civil rights chargesand, additionally, for conspiracy to intimi-date to prevent an individual from accept-ing or holding office in the United Statesand willfully destroying mail-matter.

The defense questioned the credibility,reputation, and testimony of the govern-ment’s witnesses, especially Newham andLee, while also presenting seemingly solidalibis for their defendants.The prosecutioncould not use Lee’s testimony when it wasdiscovered that he had served 30 days on achain gang for stealing a cross-cut saw.Witnesses for the defense testified thatNewham had been a witness in court inKingstree, South Carolina, on the day heclaimed to be in Lake City conspiring tomurder Baker, even though the recordsseemed to have been tampered with andpossibly changed. On cross-examination,the defense made the witnesses admit theyhad received money from the government.Witnesses for the defense also testified thatthe government’s witnesses knew nothingof the lynching but were testifying only formonetary reasons.

When the prosecution and defense fin-ished their closing arguments and submit-ted all their evidence on April 19, Bell wasstill confident. In a telegram to the attor-ney general, he wrote, “If jury does notconvict it will be utterly useless herafter[sic] to attempt convictions in this Statefor similar offenses.”

After two strong opposing arguments,the jury deliberated for 24 hours. On April22,“not guilty” verdicts were returned forthree men.The jury was deadlocked five toseven for a guilty verdict on the other eightdefendants, and the judge ordered a mistri-al. Lathrop wrote to the attorney general,“The evidence on part of the prosecution

Prologue 27

was in my opinion clear and should havebeen satisfactory as to the guilt of eight ofthe defendants.” He stated that he did notwant to pursue the case any longer, “Iwould gladly be relieved of the terriblestrain and responsibility of another trial ofthis case, if it could be avoided,” and theDepartment of Justice did not seek furtherprosecution. The federal governmentapparently still hoped to retry the lynchersas of April 2, 1901, when it transferred thecase to the contingent docket, keeping thecase file open until 1908.

After the trial, Lavinia Baker was quiteaware of her family’s dire conditions inSouth Carolina. When a young whitewoman named Lillian Clayton Jewett fromBoston, Massachusetts, came to Charlestonto meet with her and promised a better lifein the north and economic support, Mrs.

Baker agreed.However,when a tuberculosisepidemic plagued the poor AfricanAmerican population in Boston,she lost heryoungest child in 1908 to the disease; by1920, three more would die.Then in 1942,the last surviving child, Cora, died from aheart attack. With all her children gone,Lavinia returned to Florence County, SouthCarolina, and lived the remainder of her lifein Cartersville,where she died in 1947.

Ida B.Wells-Barnett’s efforts to bring jus-tice to the Baker family by urging govern-ment officials to investigate the lynching ofa federal officeholder and providing for thesurviving family needs were not in vain.Throughout her lynching crusade in theearly 20th century, she continued to refer-ence the lynching of Postmaster Bakerwhen she lectured across the country,bringing more attention to the violentinstance of white mob violence in Americaas a reason for federal antilynching legisla-tion. Baker’s effort to fearlessly and coura-geously keep his postmaster’s positionmade him a martyr for many AfricansAmericas not only in Lake City, but forAfrican Americans everywhere in theUnited States. The lynching of PostmasterFrazier B. Baker and his daughter Julia hasnot been forgotten. In South Carolina ashort time ago, there had been some pub-lic interest in erecting a historical markerat or near the site of the lynching todescribe and commemorate the event;however,no definite plans have been madeto date. The Baker story will be foreverremembered in the history of lynching andmob violence in the state of South Carolinaand in the United States.

Fall 200828 Prologue

Trichita M. Chestnut is an

archivist with the Initial Processing

and Declassification Division, of

the National Archives at College

Park, MD. She wrote Reference Information Paper

(RIP) 112, Federal Records Pertaining to Brown v.

Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) and

worked on RIP 113,Federal Records Relating to Civil

Rights in the Post–World War II Era. She is a graduate

of Spelman College and received her M.A. in public

history at Howard University. She is currently pursing

a doctoral degree in U.S.history at Howard University.

Author

P

Above: The U.S. Circuit Court, District of South Carolina, declared a mistrial onApril 22, 1899, after the jury was deadlocked on a guilty verdict for eight defen-dants.Three others were found “not guilty.”

Left: Lavinia Baker and her family accepted an offer of assistance after the trialby relocating to Boston, where this July 19, 1899, image of the family appearedin the Boston Herald. She returned to Cartersville, South Carolina, in 1942 anddied in 1947.

Below: Ida B. Wells-Barnett was one of the most active crusaders against racialviolence. Her writings on southern atrocities were widely distributed, as evi-denced by this British version of her 1892 work on “Lynch Law.”

Lynching Prologue 29

This article is dedicated to the memory of my

colleague,friend,and mentor,Dr.Walter B.Hill, Jr.

(May 22, 1949–July 29, 2008), who always

unselfishly supported and believed in me and

my research. Without his patience, guidance,

and most of all his love, this article would not

have been possible. I will miss you dearly.

The author is grateful to her supervisor, Neil

Carmichael for allowing her time to research

and write this article. For their help in locating

records used in this article, she also thanks col-

leagues William Davis, Randall Fortson, Bernice

McGuire, Rodney Ross, and Aloha South.

The author’s description of lynching is

loosely based on the lynching definition agreed

upon at the December 11, 1940, meeting at

Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, that

included the leading crusaders against lynch-

ing: the Tuskegee Institute, the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored

People, the Association of Southern Women for

the Prevention of Lynching, and the

International Labor Defense.

Archival sources include the 1880 census and

the Ida B.Wells Papers and Orator F.Cook Papers,

Special Collections Research Center,University of

Chicago Library.In addition, in Records of District

Courts of the United States, Record Group (RG)

21, United States Circuit Court District of South

Carolina, Criminal Cases, 1867–1911, National

Archives–Southeast Region (Atlanta), is found

case file 1897, which includes the 47-page indict-

ment, opinion, order granting bail, petition and

order for arrests, and the verdict of the Lake City

trial. Records of the Post Office Department, RG

28, Record of Appointment of Postmasters,

1832–1971 (National Archives Microfilm

Publication M841, roll 114), records Baker’s

appointment. Baker’s name was erroneously

recorded as Benjamin F.Baker instead of Frazier B.

Baker.When the mistake became known, it was

corrected to Frazier B.Baker on April 2,1892.This

correction is acknowledged in the Postmaster

Journals,vol.105,p.105,in Orders,1835–1953,RG

28, National Archives Building, Washington, DC

(NAB). Letters from Wells-Barnett and correspon-

dence Attorney General John W. Griggs received

from District Attorney of South Carolina Abial

Lathrop and other federal attorneys,marshals,and

the general public regarding the Lake City

lynching and trial may be found in File #1898-

3463,Year Files, 1884–1903,General Records of

the Department of Justice, RG 60, National

Archives at College Park, MD (NACP).The fold-

er “Assassination of the Postmaster of Lake City,

South Carolina, March 9, 1898–Jan. 6, 1899,” in

records of the Committee on Post Offices and

Post Roads (55th Congress), Records of Early

Select Committee, Records of the U.S. House of

Representatives, RG 233, NAB, contains petitions

and resolutions received after the Baker lynching.

Published government sources include the

Journal of the House of Representatives (55th

Congress, 2nd sess.); The Official Register of

the United States, 1816–1959; Revised Statues

of the United States; and the Congressional

Record of Proceedings and Debates.

Representative William Lorimer presented two

resolutions (the first on February 23, and the sec-

ond on February 24) to members in the House of

Representatives to investigate the lynching of the

postmaster and his daughter and the shooting of

his wife and children (Congressional Record

[55th Congress, 2nd sess.]).The resolution was

referred to the Committee on Post-Offices and

Post-Roads. On three separate occasions—

February 28, March 2, and March 3—Illinois

Senator William E. Mason introduced his own

resolution in the Senate to create a joint commit-

tee of Congress to investigate the murders,

which was also referred to the committee. See

also Report No. 649 found in Congressional

Serial Set (55th Congress, 2nd sess.). Also on

March 3, Representative George Henry White

presented H. Res. 171 in an effort to provide

relief to Mrs. Baker and her children. See Report

No.1379,which accompanied H.Res.171, found

in the Congressional Serial Set; no further refer-

ences were made regarding the relief for Mrs.

Baker and her family after May 19,1898. It is evi-

dent from the silence of some of the South

Carolina congressmen and their lack of partici-

pation during the debates that they were not the

least bit interested in supporting any of the res-

olutions presented by the congressmen from

Illinois and North Carolina. Only South Carolina

Senator John McLaurin made any comment, and

that was to state that he believed the Senate had

no reason to involve itself in the lynching and

that state authorities should handle the murder

investigation.Also in the Congressional Record

(Senate’s Special Session, 55th Congress, 1st

sess.) is more information regarding the lynch-

ing of the three Italians. For more information

on the lynched Mexican citizen, see Report No.

237, Indemnity to Relatives of Luis Moreno, in

the Congressional Serial Set (55th Congress,

2nd sess.).

There are many sources on the history of

lynchings in the United States and the history of

African Americans in South Carolina. Among

those used for this article are James E. Cutler,

Lynch-Law:An Investigation Into the History of

Lynching in the United States (Montclair, NJ:

Patterson Smith, 1969); Alfreda M. Duster, ed.,

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida

B. Wells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1970);Terence Finnegan,“Lynching and Political

Power in Mississippi and South Carolina,” in

Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the

South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina

Press,1997);George M.Frederickson,The Image

in the White Mind: the Debate on Afro-

American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914

(New York: Harper & Row, 1971); Willard B.

Gatewood, Jr., Black Americans and the White

Man’s Burden, 1898–1903 (Urbana: University

of Illinois Press, 1975); Paula Giddings, Ida: A

Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the

Campaign Against Lynching (New York:

Amistad, 2008); Roger K. Hux, “Lillian Clayton

Jewett and the Rescue of the Baker Family,

1899–1900 in Historical Journal of

Massachusetts (Winter,1991); I.A.Newby,Black

Carolinas: A History of Blacks in South

Carolina from 1895 to 1968 (Columbia:

University of South Carolina Press, 1973); Frank

Shay, Judge Lynch: His First Hundred Years

(New Jersey: Patterson Smith Publishing, 1969);

Francis B. Simkins, “Ben Tillman’s View of the

Negro,” in Journal of Southern History (May

1937); George B. Tindall, South Carolina

Negroes, 1877–1900 (Columbia: University of

South Carolina Press, 1952); Ida B.Wells-Barnett,

On Lynchings: Southern Horrors, A Red Record,

and Mob Rule in New Orleans (Manchester,

NH: Ayer Company Publishers, reprint 1991);

and Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race:

Black-White Relations in the American South

Since Emancipation (New York: Oxford

University Press,1984).Newspapers include the

Charleston News and Courier, the Chicago

Tribune, and the Washington Post.

NOTE ON SOURCES