Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-20
FLEMON'S TALE TOLD.
A Meeting Mainly for Revenue at
Lafayette Hall Last Night.
SOUTH CAROLINA AGAIN PAINTED
The Hue of the Audience, by the Lately
Shackled Lecturer.
A CROWD SMALL, BUT ENTHUSIASTIC

E. F. Flemon's friends to the number of
800 or more assembled in Lafayette Hall
last night to hear how the Lord had deliv-
cred him out of the den of lions in South
Carolina. Mr.. Isaac Washington presided,
and proceedings were inaugurated by
prayer There was a considerable sprink-
ling of Caucasians in the hall.
The audience was worked up to the proper
pitch of appreciation by tableau or object
lesson-designed to show how colored peo-
pie were manacled in Pennsylvania to ap-
pease the wrath of South Carolina. Flemon
was seated on a chair and Paddy Fitzger-
aid put the manacles on his wrists and feet.
Strange as it may appear Paddy said never
a word about any latent design he might
have of starting a museum with the high
ly polished nickel-plated bracelet for q
nucleus.
Mr.. Flemon first told of his early strug-
giles to get corn bread and bacon and an ed
ucation. He then related scenes of violence
he had witnessed in his boyhood in which
his race played subordinate but thrilling
parts. He denounced his captors as liars in
many of their statements, and said
Jutrt was sOueluluS III Tie Oousu
that needed uncovering and nearly an
hour was occupied in uncovering it. He
told now President Hayes had disarred the
negroes, and in disarming them had dis
franchised them also.
KNOWLEDGE WAS POWER THERE.
There were boxes placed at the polling
booths from which voters must take their
ballots. These boxes were labeled with the
sc he Iofa nd fho
offices for which they were rum
ming, and as the negroes as a rule could
not read, and as no one was present to read
for them and the whites were present in
force and ali armed, the negroes didn't do
much voting in and about Edgefeld.
The trouble in 1884 was rehearsed. The
speaker got into trouble because he sought
to enlighten his race on the political situa-
ton. On the night of the trouble the speaker
said there were several small armies of
white people looking for four colored boys
some one and the speaker got ball in his
wrist. The excuse for the war was that in a
crowd of negroes, few days previous, two
revolvers were found. Flemon said
there wasn't q board in the house in
which he and his three friends were
that wasn't riddled with bullets. He said
that when black man got into trouble in
South Carolina any white man who ar
rested a "nigger" became at once an officer,
and every man in the State was deputized
to arrest a "nigger." 'If this is liberty I
want to live where there is no liberty. We
were native citizens. I didn't emigrate to
"Sho.guns in South Carolina hit niggers
every time they 60 off, 1t isn't necessary to
aim at nigger. The gun turns that way
ITSELF" [Renewed and long continued ap-
plause.
These South Carolina armies finally drove
Flemon into a canebrake, where he re-
mained for two days and two nights without
food, and then got past his would-be captors
by wading up branch. They thought he
was a coon. [Cheers.1
Following up the story until the time he
was taken from this city to Edge6eld, s. c.,
Flemon continued: "Well, was manacled
and taken back, but wasn't tried.
SOUTH CAROLINA WAS
"One man said he'd give $500 if that man
Flemon was taken back North, and there
were many like him. The matter had been
agitated too much to suit the people there,
and they didn't want to see me tried and
hung"
Flemon said the prevalent opinion of the
negro in South Carolina was that he could
be abused with impunity and hadn't sense
enough to right himself He said they
paid three-fourths of the States
taxes and then were asked, not
only in South Carolina but else
where, why, il they didn't like the
South they didn't leave it. Flemon asked
where they should 60 He thought if they
were to leave for parts where they would
get fair show, Pittsburs's share would be
so great that he for one would certainly at
tempt 20 get out. He wanted to be shown
where they should go if all left the
South. He told a story of a rela-
tive of his in South Carolina,
who was hardworking, thrifty and accu-
mulative man, who had some idea of busi-
ness and never paid money without taking
receipts. This relative showed the speaker
bundle of receips, and the latter found
that while they acknowledged the receipt of
money, none of them were signed, and the
holder was at the mercy of the men who had
made him believe they had receipted him
for all he had paid.
AT the conclusion of Flemon's address
there were 1nud calls for Cotonal Eobollc