Lynching History spurs call for closure, 90 years later...

[Warph]

Nina Denson-Rogers, a historian for the Lee County Black History Society, becomes emotional when describing the lynchings of two black boys in Fort Myers, Fla. in May 1924. Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/21/fort-myers-lynchings-1924/9397183/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomNation-TopStories+%28USATODAY+-+Nation+Top+Stories%29

by Janine Zeitlin, Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- For decades, Nina Denson-Rogers has tried to piece together the story of two gruesome days in 1924 when a mob of white people lynched two black teens and dragged their bullet-riddled bodies through Fort Myers.

The historian for the Lee County Black History Society found few willing to talk. Those who did divulged details that drew tears to the historian's eyes last week as she sat in the society's office near the city museum it runs.

On May 25, it will be 90 years since the ugly chapter in county history was written. R.J. Johnson and Milton Wilson are the only recorded lynching victims in Lee County, Florida. Over the years, their names have been reported differently, though a local scholar has evidence Milton's last name was Williams.

Denson-Rogers would like to see their lives recognized.

One resident told her a basket was used to recover one of the bodies.

"When I think about it, I can see why they get all upset," Denson-Rogers said.

She shook her head, paused and sighed. She lifted her wire-rimmed glasses to wipe her eyes.

They were just boys, around 14 and 15.

The lynchings happened after R.J. and Milton went swimming at a pond with two white girls on the outskirts of town, people told her. They were said to be friends with the girls, maybe more. Perhaps they were skinny-dipping. There were rumors of rape, though one girl and her brother denied it.

Details are spare, save for a few articles in The News-Press. The violence became seared in memories, faulty and flawed as they may be.

This is the story that has coalesced in the fragments.

[...]

Just before sunset one Sunday, black families in Fort Myers strolling to church received word services were called off. At the time, the segregated city was a hub of Lee County, which numbered about 15,000 people.

A crowd of cursing people, some on horses and others in cars, gathered at the home of a white Fort Myers girl.

"It just got worse and worse," recalled Mary Ware in a 1976 article in The News-Press. "People were trampling through all the yards in the neighborhoods, busting into people's houses."

Ware lived next-door to Milton and was friends with R.J. The white girls lived nearby, and they all were raised playing together.

That evening, chaos spread through the city. A white grocer who employed a black driver took in the man and his wife for the night after rumblings the mob may try to come for them.

Ware's father loaded a gun. A man nearly broke into her family's garage with an axe, looking for R.J. and Milton. Pat McCutcheon was a tot, but recalled a gas truck being hauled into the historically black neighborhoods.

"They were going to use it to burn us out if they couldn't find Milton and R.J.," he said in a 1998 article in The News-Press.

That evening, Ware heard a series of blasts. Boom. Boom. Boom. She rushed to her porch to find a mass of celebrating white people. She would hear later that R.J. was taken to a tree along Edison Avenue, hanged and shot.

She soon saw the crowd dragging R.J.

R.J. had been locked at the county jail, but armed citizens had demanded his release. The sheriff was overpowered, according to the 1924 newspaper, the jail opened and R.J. was taken away and killed.

Around 4:45 a.m. May 26, a railroad yard foreman found Milton hiding in a box car. He was taken from the train and hanged, castrated and shot multiple times, it was said. McCutcheon, now deceased, recalled pulling lead from the tree as a little boy.

"They just let that tree stand and stand there until it just died itself."

A Model T-Ford dragged Milton's body down Cranford Avenue and the mob that surrounded it included a doctor black residents trusted, witnesses said, but also outsiders.

"It was like a parade, some evil parade in Hell," Ware said.

The crowd broke up when the sheriff and a judge appeared.

The Monday afternoon edition of the Fort Myers News-Press shared the mob's indictment of R.J. and Milton with the front-page headline, "Negroes Pay Penalty for Horrible Crime Committed Yesterday." The two boys "met death at the hands of unknown persons" after being identified as the attackers, it read. Hours after their deaths, a jury convened and absolved the sheriff.

The black community felt the rumors the boys raped the girls were untrue, said Jacob Johnson, a longtime Lee County resident, now deceased. He saw the mob from his porch as a boy.

"That the rape had taken place, the black community definitely felt never occurred, that it was prefabricated by this white man who came across them swimming," he said in a late 1990s interview with the Lee County Black History Society.

"Everyone felt ... these boys had just been killed for no reason, other than they were there with these white girls."
[...]

Bruce Strayhorn's grandfather, Guy Strayhorn, was the county attorney. Strayhorn, a Fort Myers lawyer, remembers his grandfather saying he couldn't secure witnesses. Guy Strayhorn considered the lynchings to be a blemish in history and later sat on racial equality committees, his grandson said. "Both races regretted what happened."

It's unclear if anything resulted from an effort in the late 1990s for recognition. Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson offered support for residents who wish to recognize the murders.

"It's virtually impossible to overdo," he said. "It's a show of respect and remembrance of a sad time."

Last week, in the fluorescent-lit society's office, Denson-Rogers reviewed a large map of one of the historically black cemeteries. She found many graves marked unknown. She doesn't know where the remains of R.J. and Milton were buried, or if they were.

Still, she'd like to see a marker with their names somewhere, a reminder that they existed.

"They were our teenage boys," she said. "It's very painful, and it would be painful. But we never should forget our history and where we've come from. We should always let others know, good or bad."

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http://www.usatoday.com/topic/6bdfc1f8-cf8e-4589-baab-5c1b7c974f58/civil-rights/