Thread by @JABell27

Here's a story about two brothers, Frank and Jim Davis. I learned about them when I was looking for info about Booker T. Washington's 1908 trip to Mississippi. (Heads up: This is not a nice story. TW for racial violence.) 1/X, a long thread.

Real historians won't approve of my methods, perhaps, but I am more of a storyteller than a historian, so. After I read a bit about the Davis brothers, I went looking for their family in the Ancestry. com database. I think I found them. Gabe & Millie Davis were sharecroppers 2/

from GA. There was always a shortage of agricultural labor in MS, so the Davises went west in 1899 or 1900 to Leflore County, MS. They took their daughter Hattie; their four sons Frank, James, Sidney, and Lee; and baby Winnie, just a year old. Not one of them had 3/

been to school. None of them could read or write. As soon as the boys were old enough to follow simple directions, they joined Gabe and Millie in the fields tending and picking cotton. Pearl was born around 1901, and little Paralie around 1903. 4/

Winnie, Pearl, and Paralie eventually got enough schooling to read and write, even though rural schools for Black children in MS at at time were usually held only 3 months a year. The girls may have been the ones who taught their father to read some. None of the boys made it 5/

to school—they were much more useful in the fields. In 1910, all the Davis children were recorded as "laborers" and not "students" on the census. By 1908, Hattie was grown & gone. Frank & Jim found work on the Perryman plantation, NE of Clarksdale on the Coldwater River. 6/

In 1908, Booker T. Washington—arguably the most famous Black man in America—went on a speaking tour in the South. He was in Jackson, MS on October 6. Thousands of African Americans came miles to hear him speak: 7,400 in Jackson alone. 7/

He even traveled in his own private railroad car, which seems to have raised some eyebrows among some of the white folks in MS. On Sunday, October 11, Washington spoke in Helena, Arkansas—just across the Mississippi River from a little MS town called Lula. 8/

According to the Jackson Daily News, an "immense crowd" of Black folks got on the train at Lula & went across the river to hear his speech. Among them were Frank & Jim Davis, now around 22 and 19 years old. Now, I only have what happened next from the white newspapers. 9/

(It seems that the Chicago Defender issues from 1908 aren't available online. Eventually I'll get a look at them; hopefully they will tell some other version of this story. For now, you'll have to put up w/my guesswork & reading between the lines in the Jackson paper.) 10/

When the Davis brothers got on the train to go home, one supposedly attempted to use a train ticket issued in July 1908 to pay his fare. Jack Kendall, the white conductor, refused to accept it. Remember: Frank and Jim were almost certainly illiterate. 11/

Maybe the ticket was from some earlier trip that fell through. Maybe they bought it on the street from a huckster, not in the station. According to the Jackson Daily News, the Davises had "attempted to start a fight" with Kendall when he challenged them over the ticket. 12/

Somehow Kendall was able to "get control of the situation," & the brothers were able to stay on the train. But after the altercation, Conductor Kendall was probably watching them. Had them pegged as troublemakers. (Yes, I know. I'm speculating some here.) 13/

I'm about to speculate some more. As the train slowed, approaching Lula, Frank Davis went out to the platform between two coaches. The Jim Crow car on the train, where Black passengers had to ride, may not have been fitted with a toilet. 14/

Or: Frank, having been a farm worker from the time he was old enough to walk behind his mama picking cotton, may have just been used to relieving himself outside. I have two sons, & I would bet a good silver dollar that Frank went out to pee on the tracks as the train slowed. 15/

Conductor Kendall saw Frank & reprimanded him for "indecent exposure of person." It's not much of a stretch to imagine that the reprimand might have included the n* word, the word "boy," and perhaps even an unflattering evaluation of the appendage "indecently" exposed. 16/

In response, Frank "made an insolent reply." The reporter didn't print his exact words: he might've said, "Certainly, sir, as soon as I shake off and button my fly." But whatever was said, Kendall interpreted it as "Maybe you wanna hold it for me, asshole." He slapped Frank. 17/

Frank Davis was one of the first people off the train at Lula. And that's where somebody pulled out a gun, stuck it in Kendall's side, and shot him. Kendall didn't die from the wound. He was immediately put on a special train to Memphis to be treated in a good city hospital. 18/

As the Jackson Daily News reported it, the shooter was Frank Davis—aided & abetted by his brother Jim. The young men escaped in the confusion of the moment, but were quickly caught and placed in the local "calaboose," guarded by a white deputy sheriff, W. T. Dickerson. 19/

You know what happened next. About 40 of Lula's finest white citizens went to the "calaboose" & "overpowered" Deputy Dickerson.

Sheriff J. O. Baugh of Jackson chartered a train for Lula when he heard about the shooting, but "arrived too late to prevent mob violence." 20/

The mob took the two young men out to a tree on the edge of town near the railroad tracks to hang them. Jim Davis died bravely, telling the men to "hurry up and get through with the job." 21/

The citizens of Lula refused to allow the Davis brothers' bodies to be taken down, insisting that they "wanted Booker Washington to view them from the platform of his special car when he passed through [Lula] shortly before the noon hour [the next day]." 22/

The initial report of the events in the Jackson Daily News on October 12 actually blamed Booker T. Washington and his visit to Mississippi for the "tragedy." As if it wasn't the decision of a mob of white people in Lula to murder two young men w/o due process of law. 23/

Booker T. Washington had been briefed on the lynching before he departed Arkansas. The train on which he rode did not stop in or near Lula, & Washington did not leave his private car. One has the sense this disappointed both the white citizens of Lula & the reporter. 24/

On October 13, the headline in the newspaper read: "Didn't See the Bodies: Entertainment Offered Booker T. Washington Up at Lula Not Accepted."

"Entertainment." Let that word sink in a minute. 25/

The Jackson Daily News did not report on who cut the bodies of Frank and Jim Davis down after the train that was pulling Washington's personal car passed through. We don't know what happened next. Who brought the Davis family the news? 26/

Who told Millie that her sons had been murdered? How did they explain what happened to Sid and Lee? To Frank and Jim's little sisters? Did Gabe Davis go to Lula to claim the bodies of his two oldest sons, and bring them back to Leflore County for burial? 27/

None of that mattered to the white folks. The Jackson Daily News reported on October 13th that the Davis brothers had been "bullies." The reporter claimed that the "law-abiding class" of local African Americans "express[ed] much regret over the tragedy, & [said] 28/

that they are sorry Booker Washington came to Mississippi....they give cordial endorsement to the lynching."

"Tragedy." "Cordial endorsement to the lynching." I do not think those are the words that Gabe and Millie Davis would have used. 29/

What remains of the story is told in the pages of the 1910 census. Five of Gabe and Millie's children were still living at home: Sidney, Lee, Winnie, Pearl, & little Parmalie.

Millie's line on the census document says:

"Children born: 8. Children living: 6." 30/end