The Weight of Hate

Pacing the apartment, I was getting a hell of a headache. My bills are stacking up.
I have ten stories, good ones, circulating and no bites. Nobody promised journalism would be a lucrative career. I've put in enough hours that I should be able to keep a roof over my head. Selling to the magazines seems to be getting more difficult each year.

I have been writing for six years and love the act itself. I get up at ten, drink coffee along with a calorie filled turnover at my laptop. My stereo is playing Miles Davis or Billie Holliday in the background. It is more like playing then work but now I need some material that will capture interest. That is when writing becomes work.

Going through my file cabinet, something I had flagged popped up. It wanted my attention. My Aunt had sent it from Mississippi where it was in their local paper two years ago. I had obviously been busy then with something else and stuffed it away.

It was a large piece on the post Civil War years. In the 1920s up until the 1960s the Ku Klux Klan among other corrupt officials were running this small town's justice system. The article came from letters discovered when an old home was
being cleared out for future bull dozing. The house had belonged to the Swift family. Family members had taken what they wanted and left the rest. Finding the letters was like extracting gold for the journalist that wrote the story.

The letter writer was a Mrs. Eleanor Swift who had witnessed and described a lynching when she was a young girl and how gruesome it was. Eleanor was the daughter of a judge and she had written the letter to her son, Dr. Andrew Swift. The man that was hung was a young black man, James Agree. James was the son of Eleanor's maid, Ruby Watson and Leroy Agree.

Mrs. Swift wrote that she owed Ruby and her family. Ruby was a good Christian woman that cleaned the Swift home with pride. She also cooked "finger licking good" meals. She "never stole anything and did as was told." Why, she had practically raised Eleanor's children. In return, Eleanor made sure Ruby got all the hand me down clothes, linens and school books.

The letter continued, Eleanor had over heard a conversation between her father (Judge Emerson Jackson), the Sheriff (Richard Donahue) and the Grand Dragon of the local Ku Klux Klan.

A young white woman was walking on a path through a wooded area when a man in a Klan robe and hood grabbed her. He covered her mouth and eyes as she kicked. He took her into a densely wooded area with vines and brutally raped her. Her family wanted justice.

Eleanor heard that the actual rapist was a member of the Klan. He used his gown as a cover-up when it happened. He knew she walked that way to her home. He was drunk and angry because the girl wouldn't go out with him.

When the rape was reported, everyone knew a Klan member had not done it. The organization was about protecting the white women and family from the blacks, Jews and homosexuals. They considered themselves a "Christian" organization. The actual rapist suggested a black man had cleverly dressed in a KKK robe to commit the act.

As Eleanor listened, it was decided a young Negro man could have stolen a robe and done this awful thing to an innocent white girl. So the Sheriff picked James Agree. He had been seen in the area before and was the right size according to the girl. James didn't have an alibi and the girl said it could have been a black man.

When the judge asked her she admitted James had looked at her with "desire" many times. That was all the white jury needed to find him guilty and the sentence was death by hanging.

There was nothing Eleanor could do to stop this except pray and it weighed heavy on her conscious.

She wrote about James Agree hanging in limbo with the rope tearing slowly. The gurgling noises from his throat and the involuntarily jumping of his body terrified all that watched. Finally someone in the crowd shot him.

This personal letter and the family of an innocent man should be told. So I packed my bags and traveled to a little town in Mississippi called Dunbar. There was a town square right out of the 1930s. The court house in the middle had both the Confederate and American flags moving softly in the breeze.

It was lovely with a gazebo and park like atmosphere. It is amazing the secrets people keep and then gloss over with superficial beauty.

On the Square was a drugstore, a movie theater, antique shops, a hardware and seed store. From The Dunbar Diner the smell of country ham was powerful. Also there was Henry's Barber shop with the turning white and red pole and a department store with a mannequin in new Levi overalls. Betty's Beauty Salon was busy, a lady in all three seats.

I found the Public Library and asked about old newspapers, It didn't take long to find the original newspaper, a 1930 article about the lynching. It reported the story as a young woman, fresh as a flower, had been attacked while walking to a friend's house as the sun was going down. She described the man as wearing a white robe. He was big and rough, smothered her screams while he did many ugly things to her.

She couldn't see his face. The evidence was a white KKK robe found behind the cabin of a Negro, James Agree. He denied having ever seen it. It had a small amount of blood on it. James didn't have an alibi.

So he was arrested, given a "fair trial" and sentenced to death.
In Hawkins County, the rope represented an instrument of justice when local people ran their own corrupt government.The last hanging was James Agree.

The Liberian told me the noose was still there. She said, "It was left to remind people of vigilante justice. "A noose is a loop with a running knot that binds closer the more it is drawn.

Then she told me, "The Klan is still active around these parts. Once in a while they march or have a cross burning. We don't have many blacks here. Every time one tries to move in they are harassed until they leave."

She told me how to get to Majesty Lawson's home. Majesty was Ruby Watson's granddaughter. Her children had placed her in a nursing home one year ago. She was in her late eighties and had heart disease and diabetes.

One month ago she had checked herself out of the home, called a cab and had come back to the old house.

I drove out to Majesty's home. She was sitting on her porch, a Bible in her lap. She greeted me and offered some sweet tea. I declined and told her I wanted to know about the lynching.

The rope was still there in an oak tree a mile up the road. She had been a child when the hanging took place. She couldn't believe how people from all around had come to watch. Some even brought picnic lunches. She mentioned for several years she had nightmares about it.

She told me she was born in Hawkins County in Dunbar. Her roots, like the huge oak trees, were here and she had been gone too long. She knew her traveling days on Earth were short and that was fine.

She told me how the house greeted her. Climbing the porch steps, the boards creaked like her knees. So she sat in the rocker remembering the sweet smell of her babies as they nursed. Her husband, Daniel, had plowed the fields while she shelled peas.

Daniel was buried here in a small cemetery on their land. He was not alone. They had lost Rosie to a fever when she was two and there was a boy, Leroy, that had lived for one blessed week.

Majesty had gossiped, giggled and cried here with good Christian friends; drinking sweet tea and playing cards.They were all gone now.
She was happy with her memories. I have never seen anyone so content to meet death.

She wasn't sure how old she was. How many sunrises had she seen? She was still amazed at the Lord's paintbrush with flaming colors and master strokes on the morning when she had picked up fragile warm eggs, followed by the grand finale at day's end.

She opened her family Bible. It was well worn with notes, pictures, along with each birth and death. Each day she read what she could for a while, surrounded by the smell of honeysuckle and a cool evening breeze.

Her family took food out to her every week and helped her as much as they could. They were afraid she would fall, be robbed or raped. Majesty had her faith.

I told her she had made me think about life and what is important. I had a bitter story that showed how mean spirited people can be. The most frightening part is the blood that was spilled to win freedom hasn't done the job. There is still racism in a lot of small town where people have chosen to carry their grandparents hate on their shoulders. I believe there will always be the dark corners where spiders hide with venom.

The story was accepted by The Mississippi Post for the magazine section.

Majesty asked me to do one thing to "settle her soul" and I cut down that rope. She said that lifted a burden from her. Now the tree could grow without the weight of hate.

I left feeling lighter.

Two weeks later, I called Majesty's daughter to see if they had received a copy and they had but Majesty had passed on.

Her son, Danny, had found her. She was under an old quilt with a content smile on her face.

By Kathie Stehr
In 2008, we have a young man running for President that is Afro-American. I believe we have come a long way here in America.