Races unite as Missouri college town of Columbia honours 1923 lynching victim James T. Scott .

Source: Associated Press

Races unite as Missouri college town of Columbia honours 1923 lynching victim James T. Scott
Saturday, 30 April 2011 19:14
Alan Scher Zagier, The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Mo. - They came by the hundreds to honour a man whose life ended in indignity, wrapped in a noose as an eager crowd that included women, children and college students cheered.

James Thomas Scott was killed in April 1923, dragged from his jail cell to a public lynching near the University of Missouri campus before he could stand trial on charges of raping a white professor's 14-year-old daughter. Scott professed his innocence until his final breath, and said a cellmate confessed to the attack.

On Saturday, black and white residents of a Midwest college town that takes pride in its reputation for tolerance gathered in Columbia to honour Scott's life, not dwell on his brutal death. They also came in an effort to heal an open wound.

"We are here today not to mourn the circumstances of his passing, but to celebrate his life," said the Rev. Clyde Ruffin, a theatre professor at Missouri who is also pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church.

Read more: http://www.medicinehatnews.com/world-news/races-unite-as-missouri-college-town-of-columbia-honours-1923-lynching-victim-james-t.-scott.html

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http://www.blackamericaweb.com.nyud.net:8090/files/images/nov9.pic8.JPG

Old Stewart Road Bridge in Columbia, Missouri
is the site of James T. Scott's lynching in 1923

Crowd honors life and death
Lynching victim had ‘same values, ideals.’

By Andrew Denney Columbia Daily Tribune
Sunday, May 1, 2011

One night more than 88 years ago, hundreds of Columbia residents banded together for a single violent cause — to enact their own brand of swift and deadly justice upon James T. Scott, a University of Missouri custodian who they believed sexually assaulted a young white girl.

Yesterday afternoon, Scott’s infamous lynching death at the Stewart Bridge once again brought together hundreds of Columbia residents. This time, they gathered with a desire to see Scott honored.

~snip~
The service was intended to recognize Scott not as the victim of a senseless act but as a father, civic leader, soldier and a “man of faith,” said Patrick Huber, author of “The Lynching of James T. Scott: The Underside of a College Town,” who gave an introductory address.

~snip~
Also honored were members of Almstedt’s family. When Regina Almstedt’s father, Hermann Almstedt, a University of Missouri professor, heard that the man accused of raping his daughter was about to be lynched, he went to the Stewart Bridge and pleaded for Scott’s life.

More:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/may/01/crowd-honors-life-and-death/

James T. Scott's lynching coverage reveals fracture
Thursday, April 28, 2011 | 9:28 p.m. CDT; updated 4:11 p.m. CDT, Friday, April 29, 2011
BY Laura Orosemane

COLUMBIA — Patrick Huber was a history major at MU in the late 1980s when he began researching a 1930 race riot in his hometown of Ste. Genevieve and ran across the story of James T. Scott's lynching in Columbia.

~snip~
"This editorial was rather sensational and suggested that Scott should be lynched, if you read behind the lines," Huber said. "The language employed by the Tribune included expressions like 'brutal attack' and references to 'impassioned beasts' in an earlier report to describe the suspects."

~snip~
Less than five hours after the editorial hit the streets, a mob of white men broke into Scott's jail and dragged him to a railroad bridge that used to be located near Stewart and Providence roads. He was lynched in front of almost 2,000 people, including city residents and MU students, Huber said.

~snip~
The Chicago Daily Tribune ran a front page story with the headline "College town mob kill negro, Missouri 'U' students join in lynching." The front-page headline in The New York Times on April 30, 1923, read: "Missouri students see negro lynched."

More:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2011/04/28/james-t-scotts-lynching-coverage-reveals-fracture/

http://media.columbiatribune.com.nyud.net:8090/img/photos/2011/04/30/043011_7009a_jb_james_scott_dedication_t620.jpg

Tamara Jenkins, 8, of Jefferson City, places a wreath at the base of James T. Scott's headstone
during a dedication ceremony Saturday, April 30, 2011 at Columbia Cemetery in Columbia, Mo.
Scott was a University of Missouri janitor killed in the college town's last lynching in 1923.

:grouphug:

as part of the divide and rule politics that those 1000 RW radio stations have been able to mainstream the last 20 years, since reagan killed the fairness doctrine.

we don't have the time to try for another fairness doctrine whatever your opinion of it, but the 'left' has NO organized response to the talk radio monopoly that has made the new racism acceptable, with missouri native rush limbaugh leading the way.

those racist RW radio stations pay many universities for the sports associations that make their racism, anti-unionism, anti-education, and anti science global warming denial more acceptable in america and easier to sell to local sponsors.

those stations need to picketed and their local sponsors complained to until the only sponsors paying overhead are the ones that will scream back into the phone that they are racists and teabaggers and love rush limbaugh.

those universities (15 0f 16 in the NCAA basketball finals were on limbaugh stations) need to be pressured by their students and faculty until they find alternatives.

i suspect that those associations completely contradict the 'mission statements' and stated principles of those universities. there would be defense from republican regents and the talk radio monopoly, but let them.

Absolutely sickening.

People pretend that institutional racism was limited to slavery, which they say happened a long time ago, and segregation, which they say wasn't really that bad.
Within the lifetimes of many Americans still alive, there were many Black Americans who were illegally publically killed and no one did or said anything negative about it. This wasn't an isolated or rare case. The terror wasn't just perpetuated by a few well connected angry white men. It was whole white communities. Yes, I think that someone should that they are sorry, local officials, any elderly people still alive who may have passively witnessed them, and children of the main perpetrators. I don't think that this is too much to ask.