As explained to me, the outbreak at Knoxville seemed comparatively simple in origin. Mr. Maures Mayes, a Negro, murdered Mrs. Lindsay, a white woman. He was arrested and sent to a jail in another city. A mob formed to enter Knoxville prison and lynch the Negro. But a committee opened parley with the governor, and was allowed to satisfy itself that the prisoner was not there. Apparently, however, there was a considerable amount of whisky stored in the prison. The whisky attracted the mob also. A general assault was commenced, the place was stormed, and all prisoners were released. Troops sent to disperse the mob joined it, and a second purpose then appeared—to take revenge on the colored population. Someone started a rumor and it spread like wildfire, that thousands of Negroes were marching on the business part of the city and that two soldiers had been killed. The colored folk were taken by surprise—there was a great deal of looting and destruction and personal robbery, and a number of Negroes were killed, while many were injured. It was the first race riot that had ever taken place in Knoxville, and all reputable people were sorry for it. I was told it all sprang from the crime of one Negro. But one might just as well say it all sprang from a desire to have the whisky in the prison—O Knoxville, O sobriety!
Because in general the Negroes are well treated in Knoxville, this lapse has been discounted, and they are surprisingly free from bitterness. I called at the Carnegie Library for colored people, a quiet little building—not much by comparison with the really grand public library of the city, but still a provision, and as such to be noted, in comparison with so many other cities where the Negroes not only have not access to the general public libraries, but have no separate provision made for them. The Knoxville library for colored people was, I believe, opened by the mayor some years ago, and the city felt proud of what it had done. It is unfortunately very inadequate, but it is in the charge of a capable colored lady who will perhaps help to “agitate” a bigger and better one. The Negroes are very grateful in any case for what they have.
I called on several representative Negroes. They were much more friendly to the whites than those I found in Virginia. “We get on very well here,” was a common remark. I visited the colored lawyer H——, established in Knoxville some eight years. He was in deshabille and was sweeping out his office with a hard brush and shovel. He turned out to be very lawyer-like in conversation. I asked him a whole series of questions, to which he answered “Yes” or “No,” without volunteering any information or enlarging in any way. He called the race riot a “circumstance.” He said he had won cases even in the Supreme Court, and was respected by the Bench for his grim determination. After saying that, he went to the window and spat violently into the street below and then returned.
I praised his probable skill in handling juries, and he was mollified.
“I am practiced to read men’s faces,” said he. “I pick out the man who is likely to cause trouble and address myself exclusively to him. Judges here are absolutely devoid of color prejudice.”
A seeming half-wit had just been sentenced to death at the city of Danville for accosting a white girl. The trial was of the briefest, and the Negro’s transit to the electric chair was made the most rapid possible—so as to avoid a lynching. The lawyer thought that the sentence was harsh—but as long as lynching was so prevalent, legal punishment had to be severe.
“Did you ever hear of a white man being convicted for assaulting a Negro?” I asked.
“No,” said he, constrainedly, “not unless it were an offense against a child.”
He did not think Negroes showed much enterprise in Knoxville—there were no banks, no large businesses, no drug stores, though there were four colored lawyers and sixteen doctors.
After Lawyer H—— I visited Mr. D——, a successful colored dentist, with well-groomed head and manicured hands. He was clad in a white hospital coat which was spotless, and by the appurtenances of his cabinet he seemed to be abreast of scientific progress as far as dentistry was concerned. He had a good practice, not only among the Blacks, but with the white country population. He said the old settlers had no prejudice against a colored dentist, though the younger, newer men and women were different. While I was talking a colored girl came in to have Mr. D—— fill a hollow tooth. He said the colored folk had suffered greatly with their teeth in the past, but were taking more care of them now. He loved putting gold crowns on teeth, and most smart Negro young men felt a little gold in the mouth was very chic—just the thing. It is certainly a characteristic of the modern Negro. Mr. D—— watched the race riot from his office window, and was much alarmed at the time. But, like Lawyer H——, he felt that there was good feeling in the city. He thought it an accident. The soldiers had been inflamed against the Negroes.