(“Whoa!”)
“O-o-o Lawd, fotch down thy angel to tote dis nigger home——”
Not a man or woman, white or black, closed an eye in Tickfall that night.
The sheriff and a number of business men held innumerable conversations over the telephone and finally a company of them convened in the sheriff’s office in the courthouse to confer about what should be done to quell the panic. But conversations and conferences came to naught because they were afraid to go through the negro settlements in the dense darkness lest some panic-stricken negro fire upon them from behind the door or beneath some cabin.
At the first streak of dawn the negroes, with one accord, moved toward the business part of the town and assembled in a dense mass around the courthouse, looking to the white people for protection.
Sheriff Flournoy made them a speech telling them that the white people were their friends, that no harm could come to them, that there was no cause for uneasiness, and that he wanted them to stay around the courthouse all day.
At the conclusion of his speech, Flournoy started across the street to enter the Tickfall bank. There was a wild yell from the negroes and a mighty scramble among them to get around on the other side of the courthouse.
Diada came out of an alley beside the Gaitskill store and stood in the middle of the street. She was holding Dr. Sentelle’s ponderous walking stick by the small end like a club. She gazed, apparently in wonder, at the crowd of negroes and whites.
As the silent mob viewed her with alarm, wondering what outrage she would commit next, she caught the big stick with a hand on either end, raised it high above her head, and screamed:
“Whoosh! Whoo-ash! Whoosh!”