Anatomy of a Lynching: The Killing of Claude Neal

Chapter 2 Jackson County

Chapter 2 They ain't no different from nobody else. . . . They mouth is cut cross ways ain't it? Well, long as you don't see no TclClCSn youknow they all lie juslike de rest of v>ouniy Zora Hurstoll( Mules and Men Jackson County, Florida, where Claude Neal grew up and lived, was prone to the lynching of blacks. Between 1900 and his death in 1934,six other blacks were put to death there by lynching— John Sanders, Doc Peters, Edward Christian, Hattie Bowman, Galvin Baker, and another whose name is not on record.1 This count was one of the largest for any Florida county at a time when Florida had the highest ratio of lynchings to its black population of any state in the nation. The natural beauty of Jackson County contrasted sharply with the racial turbulence of its history. To this day,the county enjoys a green, primeval innocence. Nature is very active and profuse in this one-thousand-square-mile area, so much so that it appears to be barely subdued and looks as if it could come back and bury civilization in two or three undisturbed growing seasons. The local treescape is thick and varied. Cedar along the numerous rivers and creeks darken the water so that the Spanish moss which shrouds trees on the riverbanks appears gothic in its reflection. While the abundant oaks are more open and peopleserving , they dispute by their antiquity man's proprietary claims. 1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918 (NewYork: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1919), 53-56. See also "Lynching by Counties ," in files of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching Papers, Trevor-Arnett Library, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia. 16 u wit^ ^y mouth cut UP and down, Jackson County 17 Pines are densely massed in every direction as nature's first line of defense, and grey, spindly cypress with cottonmouth moccasins at their base abound in the great expanse of swampy lands throughout the county. Farms standing in the 1930s were carved with difficulty from these dense woods and lowlands. The long lines of trees which served as property dividers or stood in clusters in the middle of farmland were signs of the weariness of generations with the struggle. Other clues were the farmhouses. They lacked the robust appearance of their counterparts in New England and the Midwest and were almost universally too small for the large families which inhabited them. They seldom had more than three or four rooms and fewer than seven or eight persons living in them when the parents were young or middle-aged.2 As late as the 1930s, nearly all Jackson County farmerslived as their ancestors of the 1870s—in a land of kerosene lamps, screenless windows , hence dense swarms of houseflies and gnats in the summer , and wispy woodsmoke and cold in the winter. Many of them still used mules for transportation along the county's meandering , sandy roads.3 The heat of the sun, so essential to agricultural livelihood, also presented problems from June through September. There were spells during this period when only the strongest could work in the midday. Life for most would then come to a standstill, and the countryside became quiet for miles without end. At these times, the occasional jostling of young boys, barefoot, on their way to a creek might provide the only break in the silence. The historical traditions of the people who lived in Jackson County made for uneasy race relations. The county abounded with cotton plantations and slaves during the antebellum period. 2. Nearly half of Jackson County's population of 31,000 was less than twentyone years of age in 1930. Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population, Ft. II, 54. The author's numerous interviews with citizens of Jackson County who lived there in the 1930s provided descriptions of farmhouses and farm life. 3. There were three thousand cars registered in }ackson County in 1934, less than 1percent of the cars registered in Florida. See Jerome Tyre, Chief of Registration Services, Division of Motor Vehicles, State of Florida, to author, December 14, 1977. 18 Anatomy of a Lynching Cotton was taken on rivers by barges and slave power to an outlet on the Gulf. In the 1930s, white...