Concord, May 5—The Cabarrus county grand jury report charging cruel treatment to men on the chain gangs in this county, which was made public today at Raleigh, was termed by Judge James L. Webb, who received it yesterday in superior court, one of the “most comprehensive and damaging” reports he had ever received. He recommended that the solicitor and chairman of the board of county commissioners make a thorough investigation of the charges.
In addition to the various charges of alleged ill treatment with the accompanying recommendation that P.D. Blackwelder, superintendent of the chain gang number one, be discharged, the grand jury reports says specifically that:
Frank Brooks was struck “with a stick in the hands of Overseer Ira Bost, stick being 5 feet long and measuring one inch at the butt,” that the overseer “struck three times, knocking prisoner off a bank into a hole 5 feet deep; it is also charged that the overseer cursed prisoner and said, ‘I will kill you.’”
That T.J. Blair was “whipped by Captain Blackwelder with a hickory one-half inch at butt, 5 feet long, because prisoner would not work, prisoner claiming to be sick.
That D.I Stanbury claims to have tuberculosis and applied to Captain Blackwelder for treatment without receiving any and was compelled to work while sick.
That “Claud Sufford was whipped with a limb of tree,” although he claimed to be ruptured in both sides and suffering other ailments. [A person who was ruptured, had hernias.]
Captain Blackwelder was still on duty today and county officials had made no announcement as to what action, if any, they planned to take on the grand jury recommendations.
From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, Sunday, May 6, 1923
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