Sunday, March 29, 2020

'That sends you to hell': The 1927 lynching of Henry Choate

A white mob lynched 18-year-old Henry Choate from the second-floor balcony of the
Maury County Courthouse
 in Columbia, Tenn., on Nov. 11, 1927.
(CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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The ancient cemeteries on Old Zion Road in Columbia, Tenn., are roughly 300 yards apart but starkly different. Worlds apart, actually.

Deary Armstrong's tilted marker in 
Salem Church Cemetery.
The grounds of Zion Presbyterian Church Cemetery are tidy, the old trees neatly trimmed. Among the more than 1,500 who rest here are Confederate veterans, including the celebrated Sam Watkins of “Company Aytch” fame, and soldiers from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Slaves built the beautiful Greek Revival-style brick church on the grounds.

Nearby, across an unremarkable two-lane road, broken markers peek from the ground at unkempt Salem Church Cemetery, the final resting place of scores of African Americans. Behind a twisted iron fence sits a large, toppled marker. The gravestone for Marsh Mayes — age 99 years, four months and 22 days — leans against a tree. Weeds and purple wildflowers nearly obscure Deary Armstrong’s tombstone. Dixie Lou Bates’ marker – she was 24 when she died in 1943 – seems forlorn among stumps and trees. The inscriptions on many of the battered gravestones are indecipherable.

“Watch out for the holes,” warned a woman who lives next to Salem Church Cemetery.
Some of the graves
 have subsided, giving the grounds the look of a World War I battlefield.
The Salem Church Cemetery gravestone of Marsh Mayes, who almost lived a century.

“Watch out for the holes,” a woman who lives nearby warns me. Subsidence gives the grounds the look of a World War I battlefield in France or Belgium. Clumps of weeds poke from the earth. Bordering the cemetery is a ditch filled with stagnant water — an exclamation point of gloom. 

Could this be Henry Choate's gravestone?
Somewhere on this sad landscape rest the remains of the Choate family — Freeman, his wife Mattie and their son and daughter. They lived on Rural Route 1 in Columbia. A former phosphate miner and farm laborer, "Free" died at age 72 on Jan. 19, 1945. Cause: Unknown. Mattie, 56, died of kidney disease at a house on Albion Street in Nashville on July 25, 1941. On June 14, 1939, the Choates’ 26-year-old daughter, Myrtle, died of food poisoning and “insufficient diet.”

And then there’s the Choates’ 18-year-old son, Henry, who died in 1927. Perhaps he rests beneath the small block marker inscribed with “H.S.C.” None of the last names on the other nearby graves are readable, so there’s no way for me to tell. I know the cause of Henry’s death, though. In cursive writing, it leaps from the page of his death certificate:

Lynched.”

Henry Choate is why I’m here.

Henry Choate's death certificate. Cause of death: "Lynched."  (Courtesy Tina Cahalan Jones)

'Maury County had been disgraced'

The Page 1 headlines in the Nashville Tennessean on Nov. 12, 1927, are jarring:

“Negro Lynched in Columbia for Attack on Girl.”

“Unmasked Mob Estimated at 350 Men Storms Jail With Sledge Hammers.”

“Deaf to Pleas.”

Front-page headlines in the Nashville Tennessean
 on Nov. 12, 1927.
From 1882-1969, according to records maintained by the NAACP, 4,743 people were lynched — an indelible stain on our history. The vast majority of victims were Black. Most of the lynchings occurred in the South.

The circumstances of Henry Choate’s lynching on Armistice Day 1927 are especially revolting.

Earlier that day, Choate had been accused of assaulting Sarah Harlan, a 16-year-old white girl, as she waited for a school bus on a remote stretch of road five miles from Columbia. Choate denied he was the attacker. 

The assailant reportedly nearly tore away Harlan’s clothing and attempted to shoot her. She screamed. According to the Tennessean, the attacker struck her on the forehead with the butt of a pistol and apparently attempted to strangle the teen, one of nine children raised by a widow. Sarah scratched her assailant and bit his finger, drawing blood. The assailant fled when she told him her brother was approaching, a ruse.

“Now I’ll guess you’ll get it,” Harlan said, the Tennessean reported.

The Nashville Tennessean
published Sarah Harlan's
photo on Nov. 13, 1927. She couldn't

positively indentify Henry Choate
as her assailant. 
Using bloodhounds named Queen and George, a law enforcement posse went to the house of Choate’s grandfather, where they arrested Henry. According to officers, Choate had changed from his bloody shirt and trousers and hidden a 22-caliber pistol, which they alleged he used to club Sarah. Sheriff Luther Wiley said Choate had a wound on the middle finger of his left hand, a bite mark inflicted by the victim. Whether any of this is true, well, we may never know.

Law enforcement took Choate to the house of Harlan’s uncle, where Sarah was staying. She couldn’t identify him positively as her assailant. A mob formed and surged into the house. The girl’s mother and the sheriff “asked them to spare the negro for trial,” the newspaper reported. Officers rushed Choate out another door and then by car to the Maury County Jail, 300 yards from the county courthouse.

Eager to storm the jail, a white mob formed at the two-story, late-19th-century building on 6th Street. Attempts to swipe the keys to the jail from Wiley’s wife failed. Deputy sheriff Ed Pugh of Nashville, who owned bloodhounds George and Queen, warned the crowd about attempting to exact its perverted version of justice on the eve of the election for county sheriff. Wouldn’t want to make Sheriff Wiley look bad after all.


Country star Jason Aldean films music video at lynching site

At 7 p.m., the scene at the county jail was calm. But about an hour later, the mob formed again on 6th Street, soon growing to about 350. Swinging sledgehammers, men broke into the jail, leaving destruction in their wake. Wiley reportedly pleaded with them to stop. So did his wife, but someone turned over the key to the cell for Choate, who must have been terrified. The sheriff himself may have unlocked the cell.

Nearby, James Finney, the editor of the Nashville Tennessean, and several ministers were attending an American Legion Armistice Day banquet. Alerted to the disturbance at the jail, they attempted to intervene. 
Two days after the lynching, the Nashville Tennessean
published this image of voters casting ballots at the
Maury County Courthouse in the Democratic primary
 for sheriff. The "X" shows where the mob
 tossed the "hanging rope." Background:
The scene today.

"Go ahead back to your banquet!" shouted someone in the lynch mob. "You are having your fun over there. Now let us alone while we have ours out here."

Finney and a Presbyterian minister — “a critic of hooded orders,” a reference to the Klu Klux Klan — attempted to contact the governor of Tennessee by “long-distance telephone” for assistance from the state militia, stationed nearby. They apparently failed.

“They planned to tell the governor,” the newspaper reported, “that no determined effort was being made to protect the negro against the lynchers."

Dragged from the jail, Choate supposedly confessed at the door of the courthouse to J.R. Parsons, a Methodist minister, who urged the mob to let the teen stand trial. Choate's alleged “confession” was heard by a man nearby holding a rope.

“Well, that sends you to hell,” the man said, according to a newspaper reporter.

Full of fury and hate, the mob took Choate, a noose around his neck, to the second floor of the courthouse, decorated with red, white and blue flourishes for Armistice Day. The men pushed through the double doors that led outside, tied the rope to the stone balustrade and hurled Choate over. 

A newspaper account said the battered teen may have been dead — stabbed, perhaps. or bludgeoned  with a sledgehammer — before the mob tossed him over the edge. Choate's body dangled to about the center of the first-floor doorway for about 10 minutes. Relatives later retrieved his battered remains.

“Success of the lynching” the Tennessean reported, was announced by Finney at the American Legion banquet.

“Maury County,” the newspaper later wrote, “had been disgraced.”

'Courthouse is lynch gallows'

Newspapers throughout the United States published accounts of the horror. 

“Courthouse is lynch gallows,” proclaimed the headline in the New York World.

"Tennessee Whites Close Armistice Day With Lynching," read another in The Black Dispatch of Oklahoma City.

"The youth was hanged from the balcony of the courthouse, from which speakers during the day had spoken in eloquent terms of America's part in the Great World War and had pointed proudly to the flag as emblem of justice, protection and freedom for oppressed people," the newspaper told its African American readership.

The Black Dispatch contrasted the banquet gathering that included white ministers with the horror that had occurred at the courthouse.

"In the memorial Building the spirit of patriotism which led 400,000 Negroes in the World War was being expressed," it wrote. "In front of the courthouse was the usual Southern patriotism being enacted."

 The day after the lynching, 
Luther Wiley lost in the Democratic
primary for Maury County sheriff.
In Tennessee, newspapers blamed Sheriff Wiley for not protecting Choate. “One shot fired into that crowd,” a Clarksville newspaper wrote, “would have saved that negro’s life. Mobs are always cowardly under such circumstances as that.”

The Bristol (Tenn.) Herald Courier, meanwhile, railed against "mob lawlessness."

"If the members of this mob are not hunted down and punished, would-be lynchers will have little reason to be deterred by any fear of the consequences to themselves of their lawlessness, and Tennessee will have the rule of the mob instead of the rule of the law when and where the mob cares to rule," it wrote.

A week after the lynching, editor Finney of the Tennessean weighed in on the pages of his influential newspaper. “Executions by mob are murder,” he wrote, “nothing more, nothing less.”

Maury County citizens, a Chattanooga newspaper wrote, “will not be judged alone by the lynching of Henry Choate, but also what they do toward bringing the lynchers to the bar of justice and seeing that they are properly punished for their crime against the state of Tennessee.”

Beyond demanding justice, however, journalists apparently didn't do any digging of their own into who committed the reprehensible act. A grand jury was convened, but no charges were ever filed. It was “unable to find evidence upon which to return a true bill against participants," a newspaper reported.

Predictably, a judge called Maury County law enforcement “blameless.”

The only "justice" in this case came on Election Day, Nov. 12, 1927. Luther Wiley — who “stood by and meekly submitted to the battering down of the doors of his jail,” according to an account — was defeated in the Democratic primary, squashing his bid for a third term as county sheriff.

The scene of the crime

Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn. A white mob lynched Henry Choate,
a Black teen, from the second-floor balcony in 1927.

On an overcast Saturday afternoon, I explore the scene of this horror. The three-story Maury County Courthouse, completed in 1904, still stands. A massive American flag flutters above the second-floor balcony — the same balcony from which Choate’s battered body swayed at the end of a rope.

Armed with questions, I circle the building, looking for a marker explaining what happened here on a Monday night nearly 93 years ago. Steps from the front door of the courthouse, dozens of names of U.S. Colored Troops appear on a modern gray-granite soldiers’ memorial. But there’s no mention of a lynching anywhere on the courthouse grounds.

Nearby, Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” blares from a music store. Outside the barber shop next door, I chat with a stylist named Todd. I explain why I'm here: “Black kid … lynched … 1927 … right over there ... from the courthouse balcony.”

"No kidding," he says. He had cut the hair of three customers recently who talked about the lynching.

"The old locals here know everything," Todd tells me.

Perhaps my questions are unanswerable, but I have so many. Maybe the locals can help.

Who was Henry Choate?

What might I find in the records of that long-ago grand jury in the county archives?

What happened to Sarah Harlan?

Who was in that white lynch mob?

And, most importantly: Who put that rope around an 18-year-old kid's neck and lynched him in 1927?

A view of the "lynching porch."

  Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.


 SOURCES

  • Bristol (Tenn.) Herald Courier, Nov. 13, 1927
  • Chattanooga Daily Times, Nov. 27, 1927
  • Find A Grave
  • Lancaster (Pa.) New Era. Associated Press account
  • Morristown (Tenn.) Gazette, Nov. 15, 1927
  • Nashville Tennessean, Nov. 12, 13, 18, 1927
  • The Black Dispatch, Oklahoma City, Dec. 1, 1927
  • The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tenn., Nov. 14, 1927.

41 comments:

  1. Lynching is a horrid crime so is rape . Seems you have more sympathy for the rapist.

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    Replies
    1. Your comment is dumb on so many levels. I'll just leave it at this: You don't seem to understand the concept of fair trial in America.

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    2. Sorry JB. They are everywhere

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    3. Anonymous8:06 AM

      That white dog did not have one scratch on her and she was never raped. Rumor soon swirled it was her own uncle and they tried to sweep the lynching under the rug.

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    4. Anonymous7:11 PM

      Murder is not equivalent to that of rape in a court of law, especially a ,” rape,” that never had one shred of evidence to support it. Seems like you have more sympathy for heresy and ignorance than in actual morals for the law of the land or even the law of morality in the case of a potential innocent man’s life, sadly we’ll never know what the truth ever was, the only FACTS of this case are 350 white men at the time vs. 1 black man brutally murdered him.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:15 PM

      She couldn't and didn't positively identify him. We know he was lynched but don't know who raped the girl. Brush up on your reading comprehension, hon

      Delete
    6. Anonymous6:48 PM

      First off it wasn’t rape, even if you believe he did it.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous12:20 PM

      I’m guessing there was never any evidence of alleged rape

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    8. Anonymous10:55 AM

      Can you read? No one identified as a "rapist". Lynching is a murderous crime.

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  2. Jubilo - your comment is beyond contempt.

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  3. I would really like to know how it went from accosted to rape. I wasn’t born at the time but Henry Choate’s was my Grandmother’s brother. It was such a hateful crime & justice was never served!

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Not sure why my previous comment was removed, but Henry was my great great uncle and our family never got the opportunity to meet him and the city of Columbia should pay for him to have a proper headstone.

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    3. Anonymous8:23 AM

      Sorry you come from a family of rapist

      Delete
    4. Anonymous5:00 AM

      And you, a family of MURDERS!

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    5. Anonymous11:10 AM

      Who gives shit it’s the past leave it there

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    6. Anonymous8:22 PM

      Sorry but it's not that simple. Tell the Jewish people that the Holocaust is in the past and see what happens.

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  4. Anonymous4:29 PM

    Well, that sends YOU to hell

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  5. Anonymous7:21 PM

    And it happened under a democrat sheriff

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:49 PM

      Democrats were generally the more racist back then… because it was more a southern rooted party in that era.

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    2. Anonymous8:42 AM

      But.....they changed

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    3. Anonymous1:48 PM

      That's true democrats and republicans views were reversed to what they are today, many don't know that

      Delete
  6. According to the 16 year old, he hit her with the gun and tried to strangle her. it was more than rape, it was attempted murder. i have little sympathy for him. the scratchmarks, the bloodhounds leading to him, yes it was him. regardless of color, this should happen wity all rapist killers especially the ones that target children like this 16 year old. good job. one predator less and a clear message for would be rapists

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    Replies
    1. Reprehensible comment, Blog Master. Countless Black men were lynched based on false allegations of attacking or raping white women. This isn't the way "justice" is supposed to work in America.

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  7. Anonymous3:02 PM

    Racial hatred is a demonic spirit which means that racist people have demonic spirit(s) of racial hatred that inhabits and possesses them. It makes them ignorant, in denial, reject the truth and will blame the victim(s). It facilitates systemic racism, discrimination, lynchings, slavery, ignorance, police brutality, injustice, terrorism, oppression, etc. Racist people will never be able acknowledge the truth & just like Satan they will deny the truth and hold extreme contempt for anyone who speaks out against it and its wickedness. All demonic characteristics. The devil loves to deny and try to hide the truth! Furthermore, GOD talks about it and denounces it in the Bible so let's not pretend that it doesn't exist. There are tons of scriptures about racial hatred, oppression, injustice, and the like and GOD hates it and considers it sin! Hate and mistreat other people and GOD will deal with you in his own way and own time. It's sinning against GOD and he has all kinds of commandments against it throughout the Bible. GOD created all men in his own image and he created all men equally! He did not create a master race! So nobody has a right to think they are better than other groups of people! Hating, mistreating and oppressing other people will send you straight to hell. It's a big deal to GOD how you treat other people and he takes it pretty personal! GOD says if you hate your brother, you hate him. That's Bible! Read 1st John Chapter 4! In the meantime, Satan is licking his chops as he waits for more sick, evil, haters/racists and oppressors of other people to join him for all eternity in the fires of hell where they will be tormented forever because that is where they will end up. There are no haters/racists/oppressors of other people in heaven, they are in hell! I will not respond to any demonic/racist/ignorant/in denial/blame the victim(s) comments.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:22 PM

      The second you started referencing “god and the Bible” your statement became 100% irrelevant

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    2. Anonymous11:52 PM

      The second you showed your disrespect and contempt for referencing God your statement became 100% irrelevant

      Delete
  8. Anonymous6:05 PM

    Definitely has a hint to it that was written in the book To kill a mocking bird. A great book and movie showing the depth of racism during the 20"s and 30's in the deep south.

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    1. Anonymous11:36 PM

      They are still lynching. In 2020 There was a lynching in Georgia.

      Delete
  9. And now Florida will begin teaching that slavery was beneficial.

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  10. Anonymous12:14 AM

    Of all places? Why on earth would Jason Alden link himself to this reprehensible act? If he's from Macon, GA, why not film in his own home town?

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:29 AM

      Perhaps they didn't have an illegal lynching of a black teenager and he thought that was noteworthy

      Delete
  11. Anonymous2:43 PM

    I don’t believe Jason knew of the history of the courthouse,that being said it’s just a building meant to be a symbol of our government that was basically under attack during the George Floyd “ mostly peaceful riots “

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    1. Anonymous12:26 AM

      Really? Aldean just randomly chose that one? How about don't make assumptions. How about ask Jason why he chose that Courthouse? Ask him if he knew that history? I don't hear him bouncing up and saying he had no clue. Controversy makes people pay attention to his song. Perhaps he didn't care because it made him money. Did I miss somewhere JA saying he didn't know that history? I've heard him allude to people grasping at straws and making assumptionsThere's a lot of orange thinly veiled racism that has become popular thanks to some of our I did or soon to be indicted political leaders. Its so divisive. Orange is the new whack.

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    2. Anonymous4:49 PM

      "The music video was produced by TackleBox Films, a production company founded by award-winning director Shaun Silva, who’s previously worked with Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, and Luke Bryan, among others.

      In an exclusive statement to Entertainment Tonight, Silva’s TackleBox Films stated that Aldean did not choose the filming location. The outlet reports that the company went on to cite multiple music videos and films that had recently been filmed in Columbia, calling it a “popular filming location outside of Nashville.”

      “Any alternative narrative suggesting the music video’s location decision is false,” the company says." - americansongwriter.com

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    3. Anonymous6:17 PM

      But there were no protests in Columbia in 2020 that were violent or even out of hand.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous1:27 PM

      How fucking lame. They knew exactly what the location represented and so did Aldean who's too stupid to even write his own songs. The images depicted in the video support the notion that the song is pro vigilante "justice" which is what lynching basically is. A mob of 350 white cowardly bigots murdered an unarmed teenager. Who manly. The song's lyrics celebrate vigilantism and the video all but uses lynching imagery to prove the song is racist to its core. The fact that the song is beloved and defend by the same dumb-dumbs who embrace Trump and his openly racist, bigoted ignorance proves the point all the more.

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  12. Anonymous11:26 PM

    According to the 16 year old, he hit her with the gun and tried to strangle her. it was more than rape, it was attempted murder. i have little sympathy for him. πŸ™„πŸ™„πŸ™„ THE SNOWWHITE GIRL COULDN'T IDENTIFY. VISITING HIS UNCLE AND WORKING IN CONSTRUCTION. ATTEMPT MURDER OF A SNOWWHITE GIRL HUHπŸ™„ DO YOU KNOW HOW DARKSKIN MEN AND WOMEN FALSELY ACCUSED OF BULL$@@@ THEN MURDER BY PURE WHITE BLUE EYE DEVILSπŸ™„πŸ™„

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  13. Anonymous10:57 PM

    She could not identify her assailant and told everyone that Henry was NOT her attacker! But the “good old boys” aka…white lynch mob were starving to murder another black child. When Aldean sings about “we take care of our own”, this is what he means.

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  14. Anonymous2:21 PM

    Maybe, someone should open this coldcase. How do they know the weapon involved and details. Seems like everything was based on the dogs.
    How accurate were the dogs, in previous cases. The law should have
    been aloud to seek justice. Not an angry mob

    ReplyDelete