June 25, 1903: Jack Harris

 This article comes from the Chicago Eagle (Chicago, Illinois) dated July 4, 1903.

ARKANSAS MOB HANGS NEGRO.

Colored Man Who Attacked White Landlord is Lynched.

Clarendon, Ark., was the scene of a lynching.  Jack Harris, a negro, was hanged to the rafters of the porch to the American Cotton Company's office by about fifteen masked men.  No disturbance was created.  Last Sunday night the negro viciously assaulted his landlord, John Coburn, a white planter, living eight miles east of Clarendon, breaking one of his arms and inflicting numerous other wounds about his body with a beam of wood having a spike driven through it.  Coburn's wife appeared with a gun and Harris fled.  Coburn had  rebuked the negro for using a mule without permission.  Harris was captured the next day and taken to Clarendon.  Sheriff Milwee hid Harris outside the jail.  When the demand was made on him for the keys he  took the mob through the jail, but Harris was found and hanged.

I found similar articles in many papers on this lynching.  Some were shorter than this and most of them agreed with the details except one, about half told of the mob being 50 men and the other half told of 15 men.

An article of interest from The New York Times (New York, N.Y.) dated June 26, 1903:

NEGROES ASK $100,000,000.

Their Commercial Association Wants Government to Transport Colored People to Liberia.

MONTGOMERY, Ala., June 25—At today's session of the National Colored Immigration and Commercial Association the Committee on Resolutions adopted a resolution recommending the chartering of vessels during the year 1904 for carrying colonists to the Republic of Liberia, Africa.

A petition to President Roosevelt and the National Congress, citing the wrongs from which the colored race is said to suffer, was adopted.  An appropriation of $100,000,000 was asked from Congress to be used for securing the transportation of members of the race who desire to settle in Liberia.  The petition, it is explained, does not recommend a wholesale deportation.

GEORGIA NEGROES WANT TO GO.

They Tell the Legislature It is the State's Duty to Send Them to Africa.

Special to The New York Times.

ATLANTA, Ga., June 25.—Many negroes in Georgia are anxious to emigrate to Africa, it appears from a petition which was to-day presented to the Georgia Legislature.  The petition is signed by negroes of Savannah and territory adjacent to that city.  The petitioners ask the Legislature to appropriate money to send them "back to Africa, the land of our fathers."

The petition goes on to recite that the negroes were forcibly brought to America and held as slaves, and it is the duty of the State to send them to Africa if they decide to emigrate.  The document says that there is no future for the negroes here and that it would be merciful to send them to Africa, where they can develop.

 The petitioners state that their "children are running after strange gods in this land," and that they want to take their offspring to Africa, where they "can raise them in the way they should go."

The petition, which was referred to the Immigration Committee, is one of the fruits of Bishop H. M. Tarner's crusade for the return of the negroes to Africa.  It is said that scores of similar petitions will be presented.