The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-20

Two Thousand Persons ThrO wn Into a Panic by Misunderstanding the Word "FIghting" for "Fire"-A Baltimore Lawyer and the Choir Leader En- gagged i'm a Fight Which Finally Re- suited in the Stampede.
 Birmingham, Ala, Sept. 19-In an awful crush of humanity caused by a stampede in the Shiloh colored Baptist church tonight sixty-three persons were killed and as many more serious ly injured.
 This disaster occurred at g o'clock just as Booker T. Washington had con- cluded his address to the national con- vention of colored Baptists, and for three hours the scenes around the church were indescribable. Dead bodies were strewn in every direction and the ambulance service of the city was ut- terly unable to move them until after 1 a. m. The injured were attended to first and meanwhile dozens of dead bod ies were arranged in rows on the ground outside the house of worship awaiting removal to the various undertaking es- tablishments, while more than a score were laid out on the benches inside
 Shiloh church is the largest house of worship, for negroes in Birmingham, and the pastor says there were at least 2,000 persons in the ediflce when the stampede began. Instructions had been issued to allow no one else to enter af- ter the building had been filled, but the negroes, pushed their way inside the church and were standing in every aisle. when a cry of fight" fight" was mistaken for fire" and a deadly scramble began to get out. The en- trance to the church was literally pack ed, and the negroes were trampled to death in the struggle to escape.
 Booker T. Washington had just con- cluded his address when Judge Billou, a negro lawyer from Baltimore. engag- ed in a dispute with the choir leader concerning an un-occupied seat. It is said blow was struck. Some one in the choir cried "They're fighting" Mis- taking the word fighting" for fire" the congregation rose en masse and started for the door.
 One of the ministers quickly mounted
 
 to keep quiet. He repeated the word quiet several times and motioned to his hearers to be seated. The excited congregation mistook the word quiet" for a second alarm of fire and again rushed for the door. Men and women crawled over benches and 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 humanity.
 The screams of the women and chil- dren added to the horror of the scene. Through mere fright many persons tainted and as they fell to the floor were crushed to death,
 The level of the floor of the church is about fifteen feet from the ground and long steps lead to the sidewalk from the lobby outside the main audi torium. Brick walls extend on each side of these steps for six or seven feet and this proved a veritable death trap. Me- groes who had reached the top of the steps were pushed violently forward and many fell. Before they could move others fell upon them and in a few mo- ments persons were piled upon each other to height of ten feet, where they struggled vainly to extricate them- selves. This wall of struggling human ity blocked the entrance and the weight of 1,500 persons in the body of the church was pushed against it. More than twenty 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 es- caped and realizing the seriousness of the situation rushed to a corner nearby and turned in a fire alarm. The fire department arrived quickly and the ar rival of the wagons served to scatter the crowd which had gathered around the front of the church.
 A squad of police were hastened to the church and with the firemen finally succeeded in releasing the negroes from their pinioned positions in the entrance.
 The dead bodies were quickly remov- ed and the crowd outside finding an outlet poured out. Scores of them lost their footing and in their haste rolled down the steps to the pavement, suffer- ing broken limbs and internal injuries. In an hour the church had been prac- tically cleared. The sight which greet ed those who had come to aid the in jured was sickening. Down the aisles and along the outside of the pews the dead bodies of men and women were strewn and the maimed and crippled uttered 'heart-rending cries. The work of removing the bodies was begun at once. The walls of the relatives of the dead who had waited on the outside could be heard sor several blocks.
 Shiloh church in which the convention was held is located just on the edge of South Highlands, the fashionable resi- denee section of this city, and all the physicians living in that part of the town went to the aid of the injured.
 As many of the suffering negroes as could be moved by the ambulances were
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