Persistent reports that Burke Culpepper, popular evangelist who conducted a wonderful revival in Elizabeth City in 1917, had been shot and killed in Texas are untrue.
Reports here have even described the manner in which Culpepper was killed. To establish the truth or falsity of the reports this newspaper wired to Hastings Harrison, General Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., at Beaumont, Tex. Mr. Harrison is an intimate personal friend of Mr. Culpepper and keeps in touch with him. Mr. Harrison wired this newspaper Wednesday night as follows:
“Burke Culpepper is alive at home. Had wire from his wife this afternoon.”
Mr. Harrison’s wire indicates that nothing happened to Burke Culpepper anywhere in Texas. Reports brought here by traveling men said that Mr. Culpepper had preached a sermon on immoral women and that the husband of a certain woman went to him after the sermon and demanded an apology, that Culpepper refused to apologize and that the man shot him to death, saying: “Damn me if you’ll preach about any more women.”
Thousands of Elizabeth City people who remember Burke Culpepper with love and esteem will rejoice in the fact that he is alive and well at his home in Memphis and not the victim of gun play in Texas.
From the front page of the Elizabeth City Independent, Friday, October 10, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1924-10-10/ed-1/seq-1/#words=OCTOBER+10%2C+1924
No comments:
Post a Comment