Black Teen Lynched By Mob Of 4,000 At New Smith County Courthouse
James Hodge Lynched At Smith County Courthouse, Tyler, TX
1909 - WE REMEMBER JAMES HODGE
The Lynching Of James Hodge
A few short months after the formation of the N.A.A.C.P., a Black teen named James Hodge was lynched at the new Smith County Courthouse in Tyler, TX., It was believed Hodges assaulted a young woman named Winnie Harmon the preceding evening, inflicting severe injury from the rough handling. But was there any proof?
According to testimony by Mrs. Harmon, Winnie, her 18yr old daughter, was snatched from her home by an assailant who had come calling for her husband, Tyler’s M.J. Harmon. The assailant supposedly carried the girl to Mr. Harmon’s barn, where he then tied and gagged her. The perpetrator then grabbed her about the waist and throat, but Winnie lost consciousness. Frightened, the man ran off before culminating the outrage, innuendo for rape. The victim was found a short time later by her brother and sister.
The attacker was described as a Black man with atypically dark skin. Smith County Sheriff Wig Smith quickly formed a posse and then found a dark-skinned black man named Jim Hodges at the home of Jim Reese, also an African American. The Reese home was four and a half miles outside Tyler.
When the Sheriff’s posse tried to arrest Hodges, Reese protested and then threw an ax at Sheriff Smith—twice—but the sheriff still managed to take Hodges into custody and then transport him to the Smith County jail.
When Hodges was presented to Winnie the following morning, she wasn’t sure he was her attacker. “I can’t tell,” she said. “I can’t say he is the negro, but I can’t say he is not the negro.” By that time, three thousand Tylerites had gathered expecting a lynching. Sheriff Smith wired the governor, hoping to prevent mob justice, but that alert came far too late to have any effect. Plus, the 11:30 am train, which had just arrived, was full of more mob members.
The blood-thirsty, unconcealed men used sledgehammers to break through a fence surrounding the new Smith County jail. They smashed through doors and windows and then seized Jim Hodge. At high noon, on Saturday, May 1, 1909, reports indicate 17 participants from among a mob of 4000 that had gather threw a rope up over the top of a platform made from materials used to build the new courthouse and then prepared a noose on the other end. The men placed the noose around Hodges’ neck and quickly jerked the wretched soul into the air.
The innocent Hodge immediately shook and flailed erratically, swinging wildly above the mob. He then twitched a few times before growing still. The large mob then quietly dispersed, leaving Hodge dead above the platform.
Texas Governor Thomas Campbell received word of the Hodges lynching and then immediately ordered the state militia & Texas Rangers to Tyler to assist with bringing order. A few days later, San Antonio State Representative Chester H. Terrell introduced a house resolution demanding the governor to require the Smith County D.A. to indict all those involved in the lynching.
While the resolution was predictably buried in Austin, there was a sincere effort by a few law-and-order officials in Tyler to get justice. Tyler did not need or want a reputation for exacting frontier justice. District Court Judge R. W. Simpson, Sheriff Smith, and County Attorney Roy Butler met and quickly decided to issue arrest warrants. Many were arrested.
Judge Simpson set a bond of $5,000 each, $142,000 in today’s dollars, an outrageous sum at the time. It was obvious he wanted the men to remain in jail. Instead of being shamed, the incarcerated received Tyler’s love and respect.
First, an inspection of the jail’s sanitary condition was demanded, which then led the Commissioners’ Court to order it to be thoroughly cleaned for the men. Tyler’s women prepared a wagon load of flowers for the “heroes” who were thought to be protecting the virtue of white women. The ladies prepared a spread with “every imaginable good thing to eat, including cake, cream, lemonade, grape juice, and fruit.” Allen McClung of Southwestern Telephone even provided a telephone for the inmates. It was ensured their stay in jail would be comfortable. Townspeople also contributed a typewriter, books, a punching bag, a phonograph, dominoes, and even window shades.
Soon published articles revealed the charge of murder against Hodge was most likely false. The wrong man was lynched. On July 1, after an eight-day special grand jury session, which included incriminating eyewitness testimony from a Smith County Sheriff’s Deputy, an all-white grand jury returned a no bill. They concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support the indictments.
Members of the lynch mob were released, never punished, and the cruel injustice of the Jim Hodges’ lynching was never again addressed. Of course, Judge Simpson lost the next election.
Lynching was making monsters out of white Tylerites.
Note: In 1910, the Smith County population totaled 41,746, 17,246 were Black. The city of Tyler had a population of 10,400.
“African Americans were lynched not because they committed a crime or social infraction, and not even because they were accused of doing so, but simply because they were Black and present when the preferred party could not be located.”
Source:
DeLord, R., Caldwell, C. R. (2015). Eternity at the End of a Rope: Executions, Lynchings and Vigilante Justice in Texas, 1819-1923. United States: Sunstone Press.
