Chapel Hill, Sept. 6—According to a statement issued to police here by Geddy Fields, who lives a mile from here on the Pittsboro road, the white man assaulted in the affray on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro road Monday night is Weldon Dixon of Siler City. Fields’ statement that Dixon is alive but seriously injured, suffering from a fractured skull, clears up what was at first thought to be a murder mystery.
Dixon, according to Fields, came to Chapel Hill Monday night to buy some wearing apparel, but finding all the stores here closed, went on to Carrboro. As he passed the corner of Abram’s store, just before reaching Carrboro, he jostled into a colored woman. She made some insulting remarks, insinuating that he was trying to knock her down. Without stopping, he told her to go to hell. He saw her pick up a rock, but believing that she would do no harm, paid no attention and went on. He had not gone far before he was struck on the head by a rock, whether thrown by the woman or not he could not say, and the negroes began shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!” Dixon, wanting to get into the white section, began to run and crowd of negroes, attracted by the shouting, gave chase, firing at him. Excited, and afraid of mob violence, Dixon, not heeding where he was going, ran into a fence. Here the Negroes caught him, beat him up severely and left him on the ground unconscious. Sometime later he regained consciousness, and, without full possession of his senses, wandered around, finding himself on the bridge near the Purefoy Mill on the road to Pittsboro before he came to his right senses. He made his way to Fields’ house where his wound was dressed, and he was carried to Siler City for medical attention.
News of the assault was brought to Chapel Hill by a passerby who had seen what he thought was the body of a dead white man lying in the road. When the police reached the scene the man had disappeared, leaving no signs except a pool of blood and a bloody hat. The sounds of shots, the tale about a man lying in the road, and the blood led to the believe that a murder had been committed.
Next day Joe Mason, colored, of Chapel Hill was arrested on the charge of being implicated in the matter.
Moses Purefoy, another Chapel Hill negro, who is thought to have been the principal assailant, was expected to surrender to the police Thursday, according to reports from his family, but late today he had not given himself up and is still in hiding.
From page 2 of the Sunday Durham Morning Herald, Sept. 7, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84020730/1924-09-07/ed-1/seq-2/#words=SEPTEMBER+7%2C+1924
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