Winston-Salem in an Uproar Over an Assault on
White Lady and Shooting of Her Husband by a Negro. . . Five Killed and a Score
Injured in Riot Which Followed. . . Troops to the Scene
Winston-Salem, Nov. 18—Order has been restored after the night of
rioting in which four were killed and a number were injured when a mob which
gathered in front of the jail attempted to lynch a negro named Russell High,
who is held on the charge of shooting Edwin Childress Sheriff Flint and
attacking Mrs. Childress. The negro who was not positively identified is
believed to have been removed elsewhere for safe keeping.
250 men from Camp Polk arrived last night and are patrolling the
vicinity for the purpose of preserving order and dispersing the mob which gave
up their quest when they learned that the prisoner had been removed to another
city.The list of dead are as follows:
Rachel Levi, a young girl who was shot while leaning out of the window
of her home watching the proceedings.
Robert Young, a fireman who was shot while playing a hose on the crowd.
John White, a construction foreman who was fatally wounded while driving
a motor car near the scene of the riot
A fourth victim is an unidentified negro.
The police believe that a detailed search today will show that at least
seven persons and maybe more were killed upwards of a score of persons are
believed to have been injured, five or six of them seriously. They are mostly
white people and include two members of the Home Guard, which were called out
when the mob made its second visit to the jail after shooting a negro and
accidentally wounding a white prisoner in the afternoon.
A mob assembled in front of the City Hall here last night intent on
lynching the negro who shot J.E. Childress, attacked his wife, and shot Sheriff
G.F. Flynt. About 5 o’clock a mob stormed the jail and shot to death a negro
charged with having committed an assault Saturday night on a white woman.
Later it was said the negro shot in the jail was not the right man and
the mob again formed in front of the City Hall. The mayor addressed them and
implored the citizens that they disperse. The fire alarm was rung and the
companies responded.
A line of hose was run out and the water was turned on the crowd.
Indescrible shooting then ensued. One young member of the Home Guards fell,
shot through the breast, and a young girl also was seriously wounded.
The more seriously injured include Margaret George, Linwood Hecler, John
Rumpier, citizens, and Frank O’Brien and R.T. Hawley, members of the Home
Guard; Chas. White, Jules Stith, Cecil Alley, and J.J. Adams.
Late last night firing still was going on in different parts of the
city, the mob finally having broken into small groups. Efforts of the Home
Guard and police to restore order were unavailing even at that time, and
Governor Bickett was asked to intervene. He ordered Home Guards here from
Greensboro and arranged to have a company of regular soldiers sent from Camp
Polk near Raleigh.
At about 7 o’clock last night there occurred one of the most cruel,
fiendish and revolting crimes ever committed in this section. Mr. Jim
Childress, an elderly white man, and his wife, Cora, a woman about 48 years of
age, left their home along the Inverness Mills row and started to Mr. Pulliam’s
store, just in front of Piedmont Park, to purchase provisions for today. As
they neared the Southern Railway trestle which crosses the Inverness road at
that point a negro stepped out before them, holding them up at the point of a
revolver. To give the remainder of the story as it came from Mrs. Cora
Childress’ lips, in the presence of Sheriff Flint, Chief of Police Thomas and a
representative of The Journal:
“We were too much frightened to make an outcry. It happened so suddenly
that we were completely dazed. The negro forced us to leave the road and move
back along the footpath running along the railroad in the direction of town
until we came to a deep gully. He forced us to go down into this. Then he shot
my husband twice. I thought he was dead! After this he forced me to go along
the path until he came to a small branch behind the Cahill Box Factory.”
There was a break in her story until Chief Thomas asked her if she had
been offered any violence. Her answer was:
“Yes.”
Sheriff Flynt then asked if he had accomplished his purpose, and her
answer again was:
“Yes.”
“He would have killed me afterwards if I had not pleaded with him to let
me live to see my three children again. He walked away in the direction of
town, after telling me that if I said anything my character would be ruined. He
was a tall, black, slim negro, wearing a cap and dressed in a dark suit of
clothes. The pistol he had threatened me with was a large bright one. I feel
sure I could identify him if I saw him again.”
The negro also told her, she said, that he was from Roanoke. This was
all that she could say by way of furnishing a clue to the criminal’s identity.
After the negro had left her, she made her way back to the street in front of
the park, where she met a number of people who had been looking for her in
every direction.
What became of her husband after he was shot was told by Mr. J.S.
Pulbiasm who owns the store towards which the man and his wife had started.
“Several people, the car motorman among them, heard groans and outcries
in the direction of the trestle,” said Mr. Pulliam. “I heard them myself and
several of us started in that direction. We came upon Mr. Childress dragging
himself towards the road. He was seemingly in a desperate condition, and we
examined him as well as we could by moonlight. He was shot through the stomach
and through the head.
“We asked him what was the matter and he said that he had been held up
by a negro and robbed; that he and his wife had been forced form the road to a
deep gully and into it, where she was shot and killed and he himself shot
twice. The negro went away dragging the wife’s body. Some one asked him how
much money had been taken from him, and he answered not very much as he did not
have very much with him.”
Mr. Pulliam, seeing that the wounded man’s condition was desperate,
hurried to the store and phoned for both the police and for an ambulance. The
ambulance came in a very short time, and the wounded man was hurried to the
hospital. Sheriff Flynt, Chief Thomas and several members of their force were
soon on the scene of the crime. But before they arrived, hastily assembled
bodies of white and colored people were scouring the immediate vicinity for the
woman’s body. It could not be found, for reasons already given.
The hospital reported at a late hour that the condition of Mr. Childress
was very critical, not believed to be hopelessly fatal.
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