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(1930s) Rural South Carolina

1930S American Girl and Little Brother Watching her Weaving A Sweetgrass Basket In Front Of Log Cabin Rural South Carolina USA

(Photo By H. Armstrong Roberts/Classicstock/Getty Images)

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23 hours ago | [YT] | 231

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(1967) Board Clears Patrolman Of RACIST Name-Calling Charge

BALTIMORE SUN

By RICHARD H. LEVINE

A city patrolman charged with calling a citizen "N*GGER" was found innocent of the charge yesterday by a departmental disciplinary board which heard the case.

Patrolman Leroy A. Phillips, a veteran of nearly nine years service, testified under oath that he was not guilty of the specific acts and use of language spelled out in the charges.

The case arose after an article was published in The Sun, in which Frederic B. Hill, a Sun reporter, detailed his eyewitness account of an arrest of two Negro women on November 22.

**Reporters Testify**

Mr. Hill and Daniel A. Drosdoff, another reporter for The Sun who was with him at the time, claimed that the officer used the word "N*GGER" repeatedly when he arrested Miss Tikie Meda, 23, for disturbing the peace.

Both reporters testified at the hearing.

The board heard from fifteen witnesses in a day and a half of testimony.

Despite the mass of sworn testimony, the issue ultimately was simplified by the fact that Patrolman Phillips testified in his own defense.

Patrolman Phillips firmly denied making a number of statements which the two reporters attributed to him.

At that point in the hearing, the board was faced with only one main question, whether the patrolman or the reporters were telling the truth.

**Patrolman Leroy Phillips**
Innocent on all counts

The State, represented by Julius Romano, assistant attorney general, produced only one witness, Miss Meda herself, who supported the reporters' story.

Miss Meda's sister, Miss Catherine Williams, who was arrested in the same incident November 22, claimed she was so involved in her own arrest by another officer, and so far removed from her sister, that she did not hear the remarks. Both women are strip teasers on the block.

**Only Other Witness**

The only other witness against Patrolman Phillips was William Quarles, a parking lot attendant for the Rountowner Motor Inn, who said he heard the word "shut up, nigger," but did not know who said them.

The incident took place in front of the inn at Franklin and Paca Street.

Two civilians and several police officers testified that Mr. Hill and Mr. Drosdoff were across the street from the incident and not within a few feet of where Miss Meda and Patrolman Phillips were struggling.

Patrolman Phillips, a member of the Tactical Squad, was represented at the hearing by Alan Murrell.

**Board Members Listed**

The board, Col. Clarence E. German, chief of the criminal investigation division, was chairman of the board. Other members were William A. Harris, director of community relations; Howard J. Meiser, director of fiscal affairs, the only civilian on board; Capt. Henry J. Deasel, of the Northeastern District, and Lt. Gilbert E. Creulzer of the Communications division.

In his story, Mr. Hill quoted

Meda: "Shut up, you nigger. If Phillips was charged with violating a general departmental order instituted last May by Maj. George M. Gelston, then interim police commissioner. The order specifically prohibits the use of the term "nigger" and other racial and national epithets.

**Testimony Cited**

Mr. Hill had testified that Patrolman Phillips' conduct, occurring in some other sections of the city and in the summer time, could have provoked a race riot.

Mr. Murrell made a point of the fact that Mr. Hill, himself, did not make a formal complaint against the officer. Mr. Hill said such a complaint was unnecessary since news account had instigated an immediate departmental investigation.

Patrolman Phillips was asked during the hearing if Mr. Hill had been belligerent in questioning the conduct of the arrest.

"To A Certain Extent"

The officer replied, "To a certain extent he was. He acted in a way like he was going to tell you how to handle the arrest—like he knew everything. You know, one of those kind. I'm sure you meet those kind of people on the street.

"Would you say he was trying to throw his weight around?" asked Major Harris.

"I would say he was trying to throw his weight around, to a certain extent," said Mr. Phillips.

Earlier, another Patrolman, Thomas Black, testified that he heard Mr. Hill ask Patrolman Phillips' name.

"Mr. Hill is a quiet, mild-mannered man. He wasn't demanding it in anger," Patrolman Black testified.

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(1912) THIS NEGRESS A BANDIT

"?????" Up Little White Girl And Steals Her Satchel.

The Sun

Baltimore, Md..

11 July 1912

Attacked by a negro girl about 14 years old while she was on her way to a grocery for her mother, Catherine Brandt, 10 years old, 10 Memphs lane, South Baltimore, had a satchel containing $1.50 forcibly taken from her.

The girl was walking on Bentalou street, near Frederick avenue, when the negro girl approached her.

"Give me that satchel" demanded the negro girl, but little Catherine started to run away.

"No you don't," said the negress as she seized the handbag.

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(1974) American groom and bride, with a cake, on their 50th Wedding Anniversary

(Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

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(1942) American soldiers dance to band music with female visitors, 1942.

(Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

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(1940) A group of students at an event at Morgan College, a historically Black American university in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, 1940.

(Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

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(1940s) Soldiers wearing straw hats attend a barn party with wagon wheels, bales of hay and corn stalks.

(Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

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(1883) THE THRIFTLESS NEGRO: A SEVERE ARRAIGNMENT OF THE COLORED RACE!!!

New York Times

08 Oct 1883

From the Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution

The negro has usually no foresight. He cannot lay off work. Nor can he even divide out his supplies and make them hold out. They are well aware of this.

One will ask: "Only a week at a time, mistress; you know we can't take care of things." A month's rations will only last two or three weeks. The fourth week is starvation. Money goes fast, like ready meat and bread.

The rule is—spend it. If you have a half-dollar, spend it; if five dollars, spend it. A freedwoman, whose husband had joined the Federal Army and been killed, drew a pension of over $800.

Her old master went with her to a city and proposed to take care of it for her.

She replied that he was not smart enough to get her money from her. He need not be afraid that she would be cheated.

She returned in a few days with $10, a pair of gloves, and a wig!

In old times, says Gen.Toombs, an advertisement for the sale of a slave would read thus: "For sale, one boy 65 years of age, and it spoke the truth. This idea would bear dwelling on.

The man never ceases to be a boy. The race is in its minority!

Being so free with cash, we may be sure he will be, still more so with credit. What he can buy on credit, he will buy at almost any price.

Whenever an advance can be had from his employer, it is had. It takes a shrewd farmer to protect himself from being ahead in his advances at the end of the year.

One compensation—the freedman has nothing from apprehension of the future. He has a childlike trust in it. Fortunately, he has no rent to pay, no fuel to buy on the farm.

He is, however, wholly without comforts. An employer recently asked a freedman: "Where did you get your last blanket?" "You gave it to me, Sir, before freedom," was the reply; "I have had one since."

His bedstead is an accident, his bedding straw or cotton, and his clothes, old and new, for his body, a large part of his bed-clothes.

After his day's work he feeds, curries, and waters his mule, cuts wood, brings water, sings, dances, puts juba, and sleeps like a log. Cheerful with little.

He has his house, such as it is, and his fireside, little furniture, bedding, or crockery, but he generally has good health, a merry heart, not quite so merry as in old times.

The employer must take care and superintend, else the tenant will seldom thrive, often not make his rent.

One great duty of the farmer is to keep the peace. Dr. Leland says his first duty is to keep his temper. Says an intelligent planter, "Fusses abound on a plantation, and the women are at the bottom of most of them.

Mutual jealousies of each other's husbands, pigs, and chickens occasion them. There are many excellent exceptions, of course, but we speak of the average character.

The men are more polite, civil, and peaceable than the women. To other expenses, add liquor and tobacco, especially the latter.

Then, if possible, the freedman has an old buggy; he will work all the week in the sun, and on Sunday (not riding his mule) ride to town or to church in his buggy, he carrying an umbrella and his wife a fan.

The money at Christmas, if any is left, goes easy—a little trumpery for the wife, a fish, oysters, trinkets, anything that offers.

Any price for anything. A negro woman with $4 a month wages proposed to pledge her work for months ahead to buy a silk dress for her daughter, a woman with several children, on like wages.

Superstition causes their chief unhappiness.

They are dreadfully afraid of being "tricked."

Some reports growing out of the Tawkbury affair have caused wide-spread apprehensions among the negroes.

The idea prevails that six or eight negroes from each county are to be taken dead or alive for purposes of dissection. One would not think the trouble this story gives them—a real panic.

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(1892) FRIGHTENED BY THE COMET.: SAVANNAH NEGROES LOOKING FOR DISASTER ON SATURDAY!!!!!

New York Times

24 Nov 1892

Special to The Associated Press.

SAVANNAH, Ga., Nov. 23.—The Savannah negroes are getting very much disturbed over the continued talk about the great comet and the possibilities of its doing damage to the earth.

Some of them have got the idea into their heads that it is the devil, and their belief in this strange superstition is strengthened by the gossip they hear about its wonderful "tail."

With a little more general knowledge among the negroes it would be the easiest thing in the world to convince them that the world is coming to an end Saturday; as it is, some of those who are just able to read are rather inclined to seriousness today.

One negro asked another to have a drink in one of the Bryan Street colored saloons this morning.

"I dun drink no more, Jim," answered the other. "What, you dun turn probation?" "No," he snorted, "me no probationist. Dun you no hear tell 'bout dis debill's comet. I dun drink no more until Monday."

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(1882) NEGRO SUPERSTITIONS!!!!

New York, N.Y..

New York Times

24 Mar 1882

A correspondent of the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal summarizes some of the current superstitions of Kentucky negroes.

If a person passes through a funeral procession, he will die before the oldest one in it. If a dog lies on its back and howls, it presages an early death in the family.

If the longest snake killed in a day's search be suspended from the tree nearest to a parched field, it will bring rain.

If it be necessary to turn back after starting on an errand, the consequent bad luck may be averted by making a cross in the path with the left forefinger.

A stutterer may be cured by creeping up behind him unawares and knocking him down with a raw beef tongue just taken from the beast by an unmarried butcher under 21.

A bloody knife, a bottle of alcohol, and a bag of live lizards are an effective outfit for bewitching an enemy; but the intended victim is often warned of the danger by an owl's screech close to his cabin.

The recipient of a poisonous snake's bite drinks a pint of whisky, and then, if sober enough, kills the first black chicken with white tail feathers he can find, plucks the feathers out, and burns them.

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