The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-20
MINISTER'S TRY IN VAIN ID STOP
 MAD RUSH
LOBBY AT HEAD OF STEPS PROVED A VERITABLE DEATH TRAP - PERSONS WERE PILED UPON EACH OTHER TO HEIGHT OF TEN FEET.

N an awful rush of struggling hu-
 manity, caused by stampede in M in the Shiloh Negro Baptist church at Avenue G and Nineteenth street, last night, seventy-eight per sons were killed and as many more maimed, crippled and bruised.
 The frightful catastrophe occurred at o'clock, just as Booker T. Wash ington had concluded his address to the national convention of Baptists and as the congregation had begun singing At the Cross" a commotion was heard in the choir and mistaking the cry of fight" for ''fire," mad rush was made for the door, and for three hours the scene around the crowded house of worship was inde- scribable. Dead bodies were strewed in every direction near the entrance of the church, and inside the crushed remains of scores of men and women were laid out in the aisles and on the benches.
 The ambulance service of the city was unable to remove all of the bodies until after midnight, and though every such vehicle in the city was pressed into service, the remains of the vic tins lay on the bare ground and on the church benches for several hours. The church is the largest house of worship for negroes in Birmingham, and the pastor says there were at least two thousand persons in the edifice when the stampede began Instructions had been issued to allow no one else to enter, but the negroes, regardless of the order, forced their way inside the building and were standing in every aisle, the en- trance being literally packed.
 Just as Booker Washington concluded his address Judge Billew, a negro lawyer from Baltimore, engaged in an alterca- tion with the choir leader concerning an unoccupied seat, and it is said a blow was struck.
 CRY OF FIRE.
 Some one in the choir cried, They're fighting" Mistaking the word fighting for fire" the congregation rose en masse and started for the door. The Rev. T. w. Walker. pastor of the church, quickly mounted the rostrum and ad- monished the people to keep quiet. He repeated the word quiet" several times and motioned to his hearers to be seated. Again the excited congregation mistook the word ''quiet" for fire and rushed pell nell for the door. Men and women scrambled over benches fought their way into the aisles and those who had fallen were trampled upon like cattle. The ministers tried again to stop the stampede but no power on earth could stay the struggling, fighting mass of hu- manity. The screams of women and children added to the horror of the scene and through mere fright many persons fainted and as they fell to the door were crushed to death
 I'll EDEATH TRAP.
 The level of the floor is about fifteen feet from the ground and long steps lead to the sidewalk from the lobby, just out side the main auditorium Brick walls extend on each side of these steps for six or seven feet and this proved a yer itable death trap. Negroes who had reached the top of the steps were pushed violently forward and many fill Before they could move others fell lpon them and in fifteen minutes persons were piled upon each other to height of ten feet This wall of struggling humanity blocked the entrance and the weight of fifteen hundred persons was pushed against 1t. More than forty persons lying on the steps underneath the heap of bodies died from suffocation.
 Two white men who were in the rear of the church when the rush began escaped and realizing the seriousness of the sit- nation rushed to a corner nearby and turned in a fire alarm. The department came quickly and the arrival of the wagons served to scatter the crowd which had gathered around the front of the church.
 A squad of police was hastened to the church. and with the firemen finally sue ceeded in releasing the negroes from their pinioned positions in the entrance. The dead bodies were quickly moved and