Some in this forum have downplayed the troublesome history of lynching in Utah as being insignificant when compared to the number of lynchings, demontrations, riots and racial unrest in other states.
(see "Re: Um, check your history, my friend," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 2 July 2013, at:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,944007,944090#msg-944090)
If only it was that satisfyingly simple. Regardless of the comparative numbers, it is clear from an historical essay authored by Kimberly Mangun and Larry R. Gerlach entitled, "Making Utah History: Press Coverage of the Robert Marshall Lynching, June 1925," that race-tainted lynchings occurred in Utah both before and after achieving statehood and that these murders were--not coincidentally--being committed in a climate of violence between the Mormon Church and federal officials, as well as between Mormons and non-Mormons, over a variety of issues relating to bedrock LDS desires and doctrines.
Mangun and Gerlach lay out the larger context in which these Mormon-Utah lynchings took place:
"Lynching claimed thousands of victims across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of these, as graphically depicted in 'Without Sanctuary," were African American men who lived in southern states. . . . But the American West . . . also experienced an epidemic of summary collective murder in the latter half of the 19th century.
"Violence occurred in Utah Territory, as well. Conflict in the territory, created in 1850, was originally between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and federal officials over political dominance, and between followers and non-Mormons who challenged the Church's social and cultural mores.
"Later, hostilities were directed at ethnic and racial minorities. At least 11 men were hanged between 1860 and 1886, including a Chinese man, a Japanese man and two African Americans.
"The first Black lynching victim, identified only as 'a damn n*****,' was hanged, circumstances unknown, at a remote railroad camp in 1869.
"The second, an itinerant laborer named Sam Joe Harvey, was arrested in 1883 after shooting and killing a police officer. Jailers turned him over to a vengeful mob who hanged him and then dragged his corpse down a Salt Lake City street for several blocks.
"With the advent of statehood in 1896, and the institutional modernization of the early 20th century, lynching came to be regarded as a peculiar historical relic of Utah's rowdy frontier days."
Mangun and Gerlach maintain that Utah attitudes toward lynching and its victims were clearly informed by the Mormon Church's doctrines and practices pertaining to race and class. This was particularly important if the lynching victim was Black.
In the case of Robert Marshall, a Black coal miner who was lynched in Price, Utah, in 1925 for killing a Mormon police officer, LDS teachings on race and class were evident in the media reporting of Marshall's murder.
Mangun and Gerlach write:
" . . . [J]ournalists helped readers make sense of the black-on-white violence disruptions to the social order [in terms that related to Mormon societal attitudes regarding] such things as power, status, race, class and religion. These concepts were particularly important when viewed against the backdrop of 'blackness vs. whiteness' in Mormon culture in the early 20th century.
"In 1920, 60% of Utah's total population of 449,396 belonged to the Mormon Church. [LDS writers] Newell K. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith argue that 'Blackness in the Book of Mormon is presented as a sign of punishment for not obeying God's law.' As the religion developed, the LDS Church 'incorporated many . . . highly negative cultural connotations associated with blackness into its own moral vocabulary.'
"One could argue that that vocabulary also was evident in newspaper coverage of [Marshall's] lynching, which from the outset framed Marshall as a condemned man due to his color and crime. . . .
"One cannot ignore the fact that the slain man was Mormon. Given the [LDS] religion's complicated historical stance on Black Americans and its early constuction of blackness as Other, dangerous and evil, it could be argued that deeply-held sentiments affected press coverage of all the events that transpired in 1925 and that the hanging was--at least for some members of the mob--motivated by racism that may have been shaped by religious tenets."
("Making Utah History: Press Coverage of the Robert Marshall Lynching, June 1925," Kimberly Mangun and Larry R. Gerlach, in "Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South," Michael J. Pfiefer, ed. [University of Illinois Press, 2013] pp. 132-33, 143-44, at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=kimberley+mangun+Larry+lynch&source=bl&ots=Sysp-N6bL9&sig=9Ji4yZGsOpPSps-20FOX0wpRqfI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2-vTUeyfGYPV0gHO3oHICA&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=kimberley%20mangun%20Larry%20lynch&f=false)
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Mormonism's racist attitudes toward Blacks were seen by non-Mormon society as likely relevant to Klan activity that began emerging in Utah even before Marshall's lynching. If nothing else, KKK exploits in LDS Utah did nothing to dispel the state's "white and delightsome" sense of racial superiority.
In an historical account originally published in the "History Blazer" entitled, "Klansmen at a Funeral and a Terrible Lynching," authors W. Paul Reeve and Jeffrey D. Nichols report:
"On April 19, 1922, some 500 people gathered in Sandy to honor Gordon Stuart, a Salt Lake County deputy sheriff slain in the line of duty. Mourners were shocked, however, when the graveside ceremonies were interrupted by eight or nine Ku Klux Klansmen who appeared at the cemetery in the form of a human cross.
"Dressed in white robes and tall hooded caps tipped with red tassels, the group marched silently to the gravesite and placed a cross of lilies with a banner that read 'Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Salt Lake Chapter No. 1,' upon Stuart's casket.
"The Klansmen then hurried to the edge of the cemetery where two automobiles with curtained windows and covered license plates whisked them away. It is uncertain whether Stuart was a fellow Klansman or if the group just wished to demonstrate their zeal for law and order by paying tribute to a fallen officer.
"Regardless, the event marked the first of several public appearances by the short-lived Ku Klux Klan of Utah.
"The Klan first surfaced in Utah in 1921, growing out of a broader national swell in Klan membership due partly to strong nativist sentiments throughout America. In Utah, initial organization came under a group of Salt Lake City businessmen desiring economic betterment through exclusive patronage by Klansmen of Klan-owned enterprises. Difficulties in recruitment and early opposition by community and Mormon Church leaders dampened the Klan's growth.
"By 1923, the Invisible Empire had managed to gain a small foothold in Salt Lake City and Ogden. During 1924-25, however, membership surged throughout the state primarily in response to a well-organized national recruitment campaign.
"Many Klan activities were clandestine but there were occasional overt demonstrations usually directed toward racial and ethnic minorities. In Salt Lake City, the Klan burned crosses on Ensign Peak and marched down Main Street; and in Magna, Klansmen burned a cross in front of a Greek man's store because he had married an American woman. In Helper, the hooded vigilantes engaged in extortion and took over the town's dance halls; and in Price in 1925, Klansmen lynched Robert Marshall, an itinerant black miner.
"In the late 19th and 20th centuries, extra-legal summary execution was a widely-used, if deplored, method of punishment for alleged criminals throughout the United States. Only four states have no recorded 'lynchings.'
"One historian estimates that at least 12 lynchings have occurred in Utah. Robert Marshall, an African-American, fits the profile of a typical lynching victim, both nationally and in Utah: non-white, transient and accused of murdering a law-enforcement officer.
"Marshall, an employee of the Utah Fuel Company at Castle Gate, had apparently feuded with company agent and town marshal J. Milton Burns. On June 15, 1925, Marshall 'drew his time' (quit and received his last paycheck) and waited on a wagon bridge for Burns to make his rounds. At about 7:30 p.m., Burns approached Marshall, who reportedly pulled a gun and shot him five times. He died the following evening. Marshall hid in another worker's shack until a sheriffs posse captured him at about 9:00 a.m. on June 18.
"News of Marshall's capture traveled quickly and by the time deputies arrived with the prisoner at the county courthouse in Price, a crowd had gathered. Local residents were incensed at 'the n*****' who had apparently murdered Burns, a long-time resident and father of six. The crowd reportedly forced the posse out of the car and drove Marshall about three miles out of town, accompanied by about 100 other vehicles. On a farm between Price and Wellington, some men in the crowd put a rope around Marshall's neck and threw it over the limb of a cottonwood tree. He was yanked 35 feet into the air, where he dangled, strangling for nine minutes and four seconds. Sheriff's deputies then cut him down and put him in the car but when he showed signs of life, he was again seized and hanged, this time successfully.
"The 'unfortunate affair' had strong local support. The 'Price Sun' noted that an observer would find that the 'mob' consisted of 'your neighbors, your friends, the tradespeople with whom you are wont to barter day by day, public employees, folks prominent in church and social circles, and your real conception of a "mob" might have undergone a radial turnover. . . . No attempt at concealment was made by any member of the lynching party. . . . [There was] quite a sprinkling of women--the wives and mothers of the good folks of the town. And, too, there were even some children.' Photographs of the hanged man were reportedly sold door-to-door for 25 cents.
[Here is a link to the actual postcard with a photo "of the lynching of Robert Marshall, a Black itinerant miner employed at Castle Gate, Utah; hanged near Price, Utah, on 18 June 1925," archived in the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, at:
http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/UU_Photo_Archives/id/47370]
"Governor George Dern, under pressure from the NAACP, condemned the lynching as 'a crime and a disgrace' and asked District Attorney Fred. W. Keller to investigate. He eventually charged 11 men, including six members of the posse that captured Marshall, with first degree murder but the over 100 witnesses called could not, or would not, positively identify the perpetrators and all were freed. According to historian Larry R. Gerlach, '[I]t was common knowledge that Burns and virtually all of the 11 men charged with the lynching were Klansmen.'
"The lynching at Price and other threatening acts raised public awareness of Klan activities and eventually led to anti-mask ordinances in Ogden, Salt Lake City and Logan. These laws proved highly effective, as by 1926 they either drove Klansmen underground or out of the organization altogether for fear of possible social, political or business repercussions from public exposure. Nevertheless, the Klan remained active in Utah even into the 1930s but its numbers were few and actions inconsequential in local affairs. By 1932, evidence of the Klan in Utah had disappeared and remained absent until 1979 when an apparently brief resurgence occurred in southwestern Salt Lake Valley."
("Klansmen at a Funeral and a Terrible Lynching," by W. Paul Reeve and Jeffrey D. Nichols, in "History Blazer," September 1995, reprinted at:
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/klansmenatafuneralandaterriblelynching.html; Sources: Larry R. Gerlach, "Blazing Crosses In Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah" [Logan: Utah State University Press, 1982]; Dean L. May, "Utah: A People's History" [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987]; "Utah Fuel Company Records," Utah State Historical Society Library; "Price Sun," 19, 26 June 1925; see also, copy of article, "Old Lynching Still Haunts Utah Town," by Shawn Foster, "Salt Lake Tribune," reprinted in "Moscow-Pullman Daily News," 24 March 1998, at:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2026&dat=19980324&id=SM0qAAAAIBAJ&sjid=h9AFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5270,1847898_____
Below is an account of the reconcilation service, held decades later, for lynching victim Robert Marshall, archived by the "Episcopal Press and News" and headlined, "Service of Reconciliation for Last Lynching in the West":
"The time was June 1925. The place, just outside Price, Utah. The occasion, the lynching of Robert Marshall, a Black coal miner. As it turned out, it was to be the last lynching of a Black man in the West.
"But it was to affect one person, C. Matthew Gilmour, now 88, a retired lawyer, and a longtime member of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the rest of his life. He was 15 years old, living in Price, and saw a man buy the rope for the hanging. And so, finally, after many months of work, on April 4, 1998, nearly 73 years after the event, he organized a day of reconciliation to make what amends can be made after so many years.
"Gilmour invited religious and political leaders to join him in a service of reconciliation, 'to recognize the injustice that had occurred and take steps to rectify it.' 'Injustice does not go away because of time,' said Gilmour at the April 4 gathering. 'It is important that injustice is acknowledged. Because of what we do here, we have a new beginning coming. We can realize that all of us are members one of another.'
"The Lynching
"Marshall was lynched on June 18, 1925. He was one of 17 lynchings in the country in that year. A grim statistic, to be sure, but this number was down from an average of 57 per year only 3 years earlier.
"In the case of Robert Marshall, he was apprehended after a 2 1/2-day manhunt outside of Price, Utah. He was suspected of killing a White law enforcement officer in a mining town near Price.
"After his capture, sheriffs deputies transported him to jail in Price. He was left unattended in a car outside the jail while the deputies were inside making arrangements. An angry crowd reportedly took the car with Marshall in it and headed south toward the town of Wellington. As the crowd moved out of town, it grew in size and in determination. They were heading for a hanging tree outside of town. When the crowd, now numbering about 1,000, arrived at the tree, they hanged Marshall on it.
"The deputies caught up with the crowd, but too late to prevent Marshall's hanging. They arrived about 10 minutes after Marshall was hanged and cut him down. But when the crowd discovered that Marshall was still alive, they apparently overpowered the deputies and rehanged Marshall, this time until he was dead.
"Reports indicate Marshall's body was photographed hanging from the tree and then placed on display at the local funeral parlor. Pictures of the hanging were sold to the townspeople for 25 cents.
"Justice Gone Awry
"Shortly after the hanging, 11 men were arrested for the death of Marshall. When a Grand Jury was convened, in spite of over 120 witnesses called by the Grand Jury, not one person from the town came forward to witness against the men. In fact, one story describes the atmosphere in the jail as much like a party, with cold drinks for all the prisoners, and a festive atmosphere. One person reported at the time, 'Why make waves with these boys, now? The deed is done. It saved the town a bunch of money. They would have hung him anyway.' A 'Salt Lake Tribune' story of the time reported, 'Vengeance was claimed.'
"Dr. Larry Gerlach, past chairman of the History Department of the University of Utah, has done extensive research on the lynching of Robert Marshall. During an address at the April 4, 1998, event, Gerlach said, 'Robert Marshall was lynched because he was an itinerant Black man. Community solidarity kept the 11 accused from coming to trial. This was certainly an act of racism.'
"'There were other lynchings in Utah,' said Gerlach. 'This particular one is not historically significant. However, it illustrates both the thin veil of civility under which we live and the deep tragedy that resulted when the rule of law was ignored. All of us were victimized; freedom itself was put in jeopardy.'
"In his book, 'Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah,' Gerlach said that it was well known that nearly all the 11 accused men were members of the Klan, although apparently the Klan was not directly involved in the lynching.
"Gerlach also quoted the District Attorney at the time, F.W. Keller, as saying, 'I am ashamed at the disgraceful mockery of the law and order which has resulted in the affair right from the beginning and the manner in which the state has been held up to ridicule. May God have pity on you.'
"Service of Reconciliation
"Religious leaders of several denominations gathered on April 4 [1998] to participate in a service that would culminate in the placing of a gravestone on Marshall's unmarked grave. The leaders included The Rt. Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Utah; Metropolitan Isaiah of the Greek Orthodox Church; the Rt. Rev. George Nederauer; Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utah; the Rev. France Davis, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Salt Lake City; and John Banks of the Southern Utah State conference of the Mormon Church.
"Pat Shea, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, read a letter from President Clinton commending the April 4th gathering as an example of his call for an Initiative on Racism. In the letter, President Clinton said, 'Racial diversity has contributed to the strength of our country' but 'we must recognize that hatred and prejudice sometimes have separated us. Such community action as yours will help to bridge the gap.'
"Governor Mike Leavitt officially declared the day 'Racial Diversity Day' and in his proclamation spoke of the lynching of Robert Marshall and the gathering of religious leaders for the purpose of reconciliation as an important step in overcoming racial divisions.
"Mike Dalpiaz, Mayor of Helper, Utah, emphasized that 'we are not the judges here. We can't do anything about the people who don't agree with what we are doing.' Bernie Morris of Price, Utah, donated and inscribed the Georgia granite gravestone placed as the marker. The inscription reads, "Robert Marshall. Lynched June 18, 1925. A Victim of Intolerance. May God Forgive.'"
("Service of Reconciliation for Last Lynching in the West," by Jeff Sells, "Episcopal News Service," 8 May 1998, at:
http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=98-2167)
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While some insist that Utah's lynching heritage is a relic of the past, the hanging murder of Marshall, even decades later, continued to stoke bitter divisions and animosities in Price.
Reporting on the same reconciliation service, an article in "New York Times," headlined "Memories of Lynching Divide a Town," described the event:
"Down by the Price River, the bare, twisted limbs of a dried-out cottonwood are enough to make a grown man shudder.
"'It's still there, scary and ominous as ever,' the Rev. France A. Davis, pastor of Salt Lake City's largest Black church, said after visiting the old tree, site of what historians say was the last lynching of a Black man in the American West.
"On Saturday, the 30th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Davis and other religious leaders, most of them white, will gather at the cemetery here to dedicate a gravestone of gray Georgia granite inscribed: 'Robert Marshall. Lynched June 18, 1925. A Victim of Intolerance. May God Forgive.'
"But on the eve of that gathering, for what the organizers call a ceremony of 'reconciliation and forgiveness,' this close-knit coal mining town in Utah's desert canyonlands is being torn apart by the memories that the occasion was intended to evoke.
"'A man came out of the store with a rope, and my father asked, "What's going on?,"' recalled C. Matthew Gilmour, 88, a White native of Price who planned the ceremony from his home in Salt Lake City. 'The man said, "They've caught him--we've got a necktie party." That was the phrase that stuck in my mind all these years: "a necktie party."'
"'The same racism that shot Martin Luther King in Memphis is the same prejudice that strung up Marshall in Price,' Mr. Gilmour, a retired lawyer, said of the all-White mob that lynched an itinerant Black miner suspected of murdering a coal company guard.
"Not so, says Kevin Ashby, publisher of the local newpaper, 'The Sun Advo'cate,' who calls the reconciliation day ''a slap in the face to the community' and says the organizers are trying 'to make a martyr out of a murderer.'
"On Tuesday, Mr. Ashby who, like other critics, does not deny the lynching itself, published a long editorial denouncing the reconciliation day as an imported hodgepodge of 'correct political thinking, rewriting of history and victim culture.'
"'On Wednesday,' he said, 'the calls started coming in. Then yesterday I got 50 calls. All the callers were in support' of the editorial.
"On Thursday afternoon, one of those callers sat in her living room, the blinds drawn and a vase of roses from her 80th birthday sitting forgotten on a shelf. Near tears, she asked that she not be identified by name.
"'Why, why resurrect this thing?' said the woman, who recalls visiting the jail where her father, the town marshal, was one of 11 men briefly held for the lynching. 'Why attack the second and third generation?'
"As a result of the controversy brought on by plans for the gathering, she said, 'I can't go shopping, I can't go to the beauty shop--people always ask me about it.'
"Mr. Gilmour says it was President Clinton's call for a national dialogue on race that inspired him and the other organizers to plan ceremonies at the resting place of a lynching victim who for 73 years has lain in an unmarked grave.
"But with the reconciliation day organized largely by outsiders from Salt Lake City, much of Price has retreated. Isolated by geography, Carbon County, with only 20,000 residents today, has long felt alienated from Salt Lake City, 120 miles to the northwest. Unionized, industrial, Democratic and a religious and ethnic mix, the county is an anomaly in a state that is overwhelmingly anti-union, Republican and Mormon.
"'Once again, Carbon County gets the black mark,' objected J. Eldon Dorman, an 88-year-old retired doctor, echoing a sentiment heard around town. 'This was not a racist thing at all. If Marshall had been an Italian or a Greek, he would have gotten the same thing.'"
("Memories of Lynching Divide a Town," by James Brooke, "New York Times," 4 April 1998, at:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F1998%2F04%2F04%2Fus%2Fmemories-of-lynching-divide-a-town.html&ei=w7fTUdWALOXT0wHT4YHYBA&usg=AFQjCNHp4uwA9V6-z0XzXBLzyZoc34RCvA)
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Is Utah really past the Mormon-rooted racial hatred that helped fuel the lynching of Robert Marshall and other members of its ethnic communities?
Fast-forward to 2012, where the Secret Service visited a White Utah man in investigate the lynching of a Black.
From an "Associated Press" article headlined, "Utah Halloween Display Had Romney Lynching Obama":
"ORANGEVILLE--A disabled man used an effigy of President Barack Obama in a Halloween display that earned a visit from the U.S. Secret Service.
"The Emery County man had a dummy of Obama hanging from a rope held by another dummy of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
"A Utah-based Secret Service agent, Michael Mantyla, confirms an agent visited the property Saturday in Orangeville, but the yard display had been dismantled at the mayor’s request.
"Orangeville Mayor Patrick Jones says the paraplegic man’s parents ran a rope over a tree and set up the display. The parents quickly took down the whole thing.
"Jones says they didn’t mean to open a racial divide in a town he calls inclusive."
("Utah Halloween Display Had Romney Lynching Obama," by "Associated Press," 29 October 2012, at:
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/10/29/utah-halloween-display-had-romney-lynching-obama)
Why, of course, Utah has always been "inclusive." (If you believe that, I've got a Book of Mormon copyright to sell ya).
Edited 31 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2013 05:07PM by steve benson.