Skeletons In and Out of the Closet - Follow-up

The two researchers who were here flew back to Boston last night and I wanted to add a bit of information about their work and why they were here.

Professor Margaret Burnham and law student Brett Watson came here as part of the work of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at the Northeastern University School of Law. You can read about that program at this link:  Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project

The goal of the project is to resolve lingering issues from the Civil Rights era and to preserve and memorialize the victims of Civil Rights abuse. The reason for coming here are several in nature. The Jones case was one of a rash of killings of returned African-American war veterans in the Summer of 1946 and gained great attention in the national press, including a discussion in Time magazine that outraged local residents with its description of Minden. More importantly no one was ever convicted of any crime in this matter. The suspects were never indicted on state charges of murder and the Federal trial for violation of Civil Rights ended with acquittals. So, techincally this is an open case.

Some may be alarmed if you go to that link and see that Professor Burnham has an amazing track record of success in her legal career and has actually obtained convictions in some long-lingering Civil Rights cases. However, our case is somewhat different because of the age of the case.  The victim was killed, his only child died in 1978, his widow died at Meadowview in 2006. The victim who escaped the mob left Louisiana and is apparently dead. All of the men tried for the crime have died -- the first a victim of murder himself less than two years after the Jones murder. So there is no one left to try. In addition, Professor Burnham was very willing to not press the issue with the families of some of those involved in the case who are still living. Her major goal was to flesh out the record and fill in the blanks. I have not yet received their summary of what they learned, but yesterday we were able to confirm the burial site of John C. Jones, which had been somewhat of a question for years. They have indicated to me that they did learn much and recieved leads to more information. So, it was a useful trip.

Skeletons In and Out of the Closet

In the past I have indirectly discussed and/or referred to the 1946 lynching of John C. Jones here in Minden. About five or six years ago, Professor Chris Waldrep came to Minden to research the killing. Today, there are two more researchers in the community working on this case. I learned from them that Professor Waldrep has posted all the material he obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the National Archives to the website for one of his courses. I had been to the National Archives and seen that file before, but never the DOJ and FBI info, so I've been digging up local bones and opening local closets in that material this morning. I wanted to share the link with any local people who might be interested. I can tell you that there are thousands of pages, much of it boring, but the files do provide a fascinating tale of racism, self-preservation and gratefully some heroic behavior by local people of both races 65 years ago in our town.

Jones Lynching Files

If you tear it down, they won't come

Got another reminder today of that nasty habit Minden had of tearing historic structures down. I know that's always a controversial topic and at least one person who likes to pull my chain will probably post a sarcastic comment because in one recent high profile situation I was in favor of something being torn down. But as I said, I'll just need to learn to let folks comment and not try to engage when there's no point in replying.

Monday night at the Night for the Museum program about the Campbell family, Thad Andress asked me if I had ever been to Washington, Arkansas. Thad had visited recently and thought I needed to visit and also had a question relating to Minden history that learning about Washington had created in his mind. Now normally when Thad recommends a place to visit he has just returned from Greece, South America, Alaska or perhaps Jupiter -- places my pocket book will never allow me to visit. So, when he recommended a place I could afford to visit, I decided the trip has added to my itinerary. Plus, I was a little ashamed, particularly after I realized how close it was to home, that I hadn't visited.

So when I got out of classes today I set out for Old Washington. If possible I prefer to stay off the Interstate so you can see (stealing a line from Sarah Palin) the "real America." I did that today driving up La. 3 on to Arkansas 29 through my grandparents old stomping grounds of Lafayette County. Arriving in Washington I checked out some of the buildings and also purchased a book that answered the question Thad had posed. For many years I have explored all the historic figures that came close by Minden traveling on Military Road #11, cut through the North Louisiana wilderness in 1827 - 1828 between Fort Jesup and Fort Towson in what later became the Indian Territory.  Without a specific citation to prove the point, I am certain that future Presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant traveled the road during their times at Jesup. I can verify that Col. George Armstrong Custer passed by when he was reassigned from occupation duty in Alexandria to fight the Indians on the Great Plains. (I'm not certain, but I don't think that turned out so well.) However, I had never considered the question that Thad raised. At Washington he had learned of a road connecting Fort Jesup to Washington and also found that Washington served as a main dispersion point for that tragic episode known as the Trail of Tears. I was so excited by the possibility that Thad had uncovered a place of Webster Parish in a significant era of American history when he asked, "did the Trail of Tears include the Military Road near Minden."

Today I discovered that it was "close but no cigar." The Trail of Tears, at least part of it, did come through Louisiana, in fact through Monroe. However, it turned north at Monroe and intersected "our" Military Road at Camden, Arkansas, so those Indians making the sad journey did reach Washington by the road that came by Minden, but did not traverse today's Webster Parish on the journey.

Now, in the words of Ron White, "I told you that story to tell you this one", which will explain my title. Today I visited the Hempstead County Courthouse built in 1836, it also served as the seat of government for Confederate Arkansas. Then I went to the Visitor's Center at Old Washington State Park, which is the Hempstead Country Courthouse that was used from 1874 - 1939. I was in such a rush to find the answer to Thad's question that my "light bulb moment" didn't hit me until after I had found my answer and was exploring the old courthouse. Something about that date, 1874, stuck in my mind. Then, as I was looking at the upstairs courtroom, it hit me. The first Webster Parish Courthouse that stood roughly on the site of today's Capitol One Bank downtown, was also completed and put into use in 1874. That meant that while Hempstead County still had both its 1836 and 1874 courthouses, Minden was in a completely different situation. The courthouse we built in 1874, the same year as the "new" Washington courthouse, was torn down in 1905. The building that replaced it, was torn down in 1970. So while that 1874 Hempstead County Courthouse stood "witness" Webster Parish built and destroyed two courthouses. As I stepped outside I suddenly realized something else, the 1874 Hempstead County Courthouse (pictured below) while not identical, resembles the 1874 Webster Parish Courthouse enough to be a "cousin." Hindsight is 20-20 and I don't think folks in Minden had evil motives, but it's a shame so much of our history died with the wrecking ball.

Starting Up Again

Well, since my column with the Press-Herald has ended, I know that there are going to be times when I want to share something interesting about local history that takes up more space than allowed on a Facebook status update. So, after more than a year I'm going to start using this blog again. My friend Chris Broussard started a great blog and it pushed me toward using the great tool of the Internet to share local history.

As I stated when I started -- and then proceeded to ignore -- I will try to stay as "apolitical" as possible. To my "friends" who I had nasty exchanges with in the comments section, you are certainly justified in pointing out what you see wrong with my views, when I insist on stating them. Arguing them is also fine, but I failed to keep myself in check and as a result perverted my intent in starting this blog. I don't apologize for my beliefs, but if I want to focus on them, I'll just start a political blog. On occasion, there will be a bleed over, it can't be prevented, but I will try to act as a moderater and not a "combatant" when that happens.

So, if anyone out there was still checking this, there will be posts again. If you're a Facebook friend, I'll be posting on Facebook when they are made.