Sunday, October 14, 2018

Negroes In Jail for Worshipping on Saturdays and Spreading Flu, 1918

“Placed in the Guard House,” from the Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., Oct. 14, 1918

Three negro preachers were placed in the guard house this afternoon for their failure to obey the injunction of Mayor Killette to close up their place of worship on East Nash street. This is the crowd who call themselves the Holy Rollers, and do not believe in work on Saturday so they can get two days to loaf. The Mayor, of course, ordered them to stop their meeting on account of the spread of influenza, but there was one negro from Philadelphia who told the Mayor it was God’s work and refused to stop and they kept on. He came back up town and securing officers placed them in jail. One of them is named Joe Johnson.

When the editor of The Times went into the city lockup to secure the names of the strange negroes, we asked the one hailing from Philadelphia and he said his name was the church of God and the saints of Jesus Christ. He refused to tell us his real name. We received the same answer from the next. In the last cell was Joe and he said that he was following the teaching of Christ. We asked him why he wanted to listen to a strange negro from Philadelphia and not the law of the land and the Mayor of the city.


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