Martha Schofield, pioneer Negro educator / Historical and philosophical review of reconstruction period of South Carolina

by Matilda A. Evans

Being unable to locate any more Negroes, General Butler and Colonel A. P. Butler concluded that all work was practically finished and quietly departed for their homes. They did not leave any orders and the members of the mob began to disperse in perceptibly large numbers. But the thirst for blood born of that insatiable desire to torture, to torment as in the fiery pit, and to murder implanted in the heart of individuals, half-animal and the sport of impulse, whim and conceit, until relieved by the tameness and intelligence which time and education alone can give, had not yet been satisfied, although for one life taken by the militia they had taken two.

These deluded children of the white men suffering with the same malady, ignorance, with which the children of the blacks were more seriously suffering, but recognizing the advantage which their superiority of numbers now gave them, reasoned that it was a dear piece of work to exchange one of their number for only two Negroes. It was argued that a story like that would not appease the popular clamor that now would rise like a heavy mist from the sea and gain the momentum of a cyclone. So it was solemnly agreed that, while the annihilation of the entire Negro population of the town of Hamburg would not atone for the death of Meriwether, the members of the mob would content themselves for that night, at least, with the assassination of only the meanest characters among the remaining number of prisoners held. The duty of designating these “meanest” characters, and those most deserving of death, fell to the lot of Henry Getzen, one of the young men who was the original cause of the riot and whose residence in the vicinity of Hamburg brought him into the closest contact with the Negro population and so prepared him fully for the duty of passing judgment upon the destiny of the prisoners.

His hands, red with the blood from the wounds that had killed Makie Meriwether and his heart beating in unison with his rankling mind at thought of the imaginary injustices already done, or to be done, by the Negro, the state of his feelings made him anything else but fit to pass upon the lives of the men now at stake, even had he been an honest man and inspired by high and lofty ideals as it must be conceded many of the whites in the Hamburg riot were.

The purpose by the whites was to use this riot to strike terror in the heart of the Negroes and intimidate them, then and there and for all time, in their aspirations for political as well as social advancement.

At that time, as at this time, in the case of a large element of the white population, it is undeniable that it is against their express desire that encouragement for improvement of the Negro be given him. Witness, the laws passed by the several Legislatures as late as 1916 in discrimination of him, one of which forbids the employment of truckmen in the cotton mills along with other employees whose skin is white. Several bills have been introduced for passage in the General Assembly of South Carolina to make the instruction of Negroes by whites a violation of the law, but up to this date, 1916, all measures for the purpose have failed of enactment.

When such laws finally become effective it may be proposed by the Negroes to restrict the practice of medicine by blacks and whites to the respective races to which each belongs. Likewise measures may be devised and enacted into law, which will make it unlawful for white salespeople to wait upon Negroes in the stores, or for Negroes to wait upon whites as sales clerks.

The constitutionality of the proposed law relating to the restriction of Negro teachers only in Negro schools is thought by some lawyers to be as applicable to physicians and clerks as to teachers.

The same racial prejudice which showed its specter-head in demoniac form in the case of the burning at the stake of two Negroes near the town of Statesboro, Georgia, in the year 1905, and the previous death by fire at the stake near Newman, Georgia, in 1895 of another was the moving spirit that actuated the mob and guided the hearts and hands of Henry Getzen and his band at Hamburg, twenty and thirty years before. As fast as Getzen could select from among the prisoners those he considered most worthy of death, they were taken out in the streets, before the eyes of their wives and children and shot to death, in the light of a brilliant moon reflecting the love of heaven, but no wavering image of that love was anywhere to be found in Hamburg that night. God and the angels had deserted it without any apparent concern for the safety of the helpless blacks.

When the firing ceased the mob’s victims, numbering seven with the two who previously had been killed, were piled side by side in the most conspicuous part of the town, and presented a grewsome sight, lying stark, stiff and cold, when the Negroes who had fled from the town returned to their homes on Sunday morning following.

Those of the prisoners who were spared, about twenty-eight in all, were given permission to leave and told to go with all speed at their command which they were none too slow about doing. Volley after volley was fired after them, over their heads with no intention to hit or injure them.