NEGRO LYNCHED BY A MARYLAND MOB OF 2,000
Shot Sfter Killing Lumberman, He Is Dragged From Hospital Bed
SALISBURY, Maryland—Dragged from a hospital cot, his head swathed in bandages, Mack Williams, 35-year-old negro, was lynched here Saturday by a mob of 2,000 in the yard of the Wicomico county courthouse for the murder earlier in the afternoon of Daniel J. Elliott, a lumberman.
While the chief of police and the sheriff were guarding the front of the hospital as mob violence threatened, a small group of men entered by a side door. Mack had shot himself in the chest after killing the lumberman and the victim's son shot him in the head.
Mack was dragged from his bed and placed in the middle of the group and hustled out of the hospital across the street and walked three blocks to the yard of the courthouse.
More than 2,000 men were assembled in the yard and a shout went up as the group of men appeared with Mack. A rope was quickly produced, one end fastened about the neck of the victim, and the other tossed over a limb of a tree and fastened to a lamp post.
A dozen hands pulled the negro from the ground and as he swayed in the breeze another shout went up. There was no shooting.
A half hour later the mob cut the body down, placed it on a pile of boxes and other wood and burned it.
E. Murray Phillips, sheriff, said: "After the mob had cut the negro down after the lynching I attempted to recover it but the mob overpowered me, retrieved the negro and carried him a few blocks distant where the cremation took place."
Twelve of the fourteen persons lynched in Maryland in the last 45 years have been negroes. The last lynching occurred in December, 1907.
Thank you for joining me and as always, I hope I leave you with something to ponder.
Maryland went from 1907 to 1931 without a lynching, and then lynched a fellow who might not have even been conscious because the sheriff didn't guard the side door! Oh, well.
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