Without this energetic defence, an innocent, industrious Negro would certainly have been hanged—or if the mob had been ahead of the police, as it usually is, he would have been lynched.
But what of Glenn afterward?
When the jury left the box Mr. Hopkins turned to Glenn and said:
“Well, Joe, what do you think of the case?”
He replied: “Boss I ’spec’s they will hang me, for that lady said I was the man, but they won’t hang me, will they, ’fore I sees my wife and chilluns again?”
He was kept in the tower that night and the following day for protection against a possible lynching. Plans were made by his attorneys to send him secretly out of the city to the home of a farmer in Alabama, whom they could trust with the story. Glenn’s wife was brought to visit the jail and Glenn was told of the plans for his safety, and instructed to change his name and keep quiet until the feeling of the community could be ascertained.
A ticket was purchased by his attorneys, with a new suit of clothes, hat, and shoes. He was taken out of jail about midnight under a strong guard, and safely placed on the train. From that day to this he has never been heard of. He did not go to Alabama. The poor creature, with the instinct of a hunted animal, did not dare after all to trust the white men who had befriended him. He is a fugitive, away from his family, not daring, though innocent, to return to his home.
Other Reconstruction Movements
Another strong movement also sprung into existence. Its inspiration was religious. Ministers wrote a series of letters to the Atlanta Constitution. Clark Howell, its editor, responded with an editorial entitled “Shall We Blaze the Trail?” W. J. Northen, Ex-Governor of Georgia, and one of the most highly respected men in the state, took up the work, asking himself, as he says:
“What am I to do, who have to pray every night?”