Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1919-05-17
TRIPLE TRAGEDY IN MISSISSIPPI.
James w. johnson.

at Holly Springs few days ago. And yet,
if novelist or a dramatist took these facts
and wrote story or a play, his work would
be turned down by publishers and public
ON the ground that it lacked verismlitude.
Indeed truth is stranger than fiction.
A young colored man in love with and
counting a colored girl; young white man,
the assistant postmaster OF the town, IN
love with the same girl the white man
meets the coored man and tells him that
he himself is deeply in love with the girl;
that the colored man must discontinue his
visits to her, that the girl is his; the colored
man does not believe the white man is
telling the truth about the girl and decides
that at any rate he will see her and talk
the matter over: on the following Friday
night while the colored man is calling OH
the girl the door is opened and in steps
what appears to be huge black man who
whips out a pistol and fires, killing both
the girl and her caller and then makes his
escape: shortly afterwards the "huge black
man." in attempting to enter the stairway
leading to the room over the local drug
store where the assistant postmaster lived,
is confronted by officers Of the law and
blows his brains out. And the "huge black
man. turns out to be the young white man,
the assistant postmaster of the town, with
his face backened and his clothes padded
out
We say that a story play constructed
out of these facts would be set down as
work Of imagination run away with itself.
Publishers would say the story too
improbable: the public would say the play
was distortion. Yet, these facts are the
record of an actual event. Furthermore,
this event is Representative of many events
that have been happening in the South dur
inc the past fifty years, not all OF which,
of course, have had such tragic ending.
One significant thing about this matter
is the silence with which it was treated by
the newspapers It seems natural that
triple tragedy like this taking place in such
a small town as Holly Springs and involving
one of the most prominent young white
citizens Of the place would have been
flashed over the wires to every newspaper
in the country at least, to all of those in
the South. But it as not: and those papers
that carried the news mentioned the suicide
of the white man something independent
of the murder of the colored man and girl
Evidently the newspapers Of the South
are not willing to let the world know that
Southern white man could love colored
woman enough to make him commit
double murder and then suicide. In making
such an admission there would naturally
arise the question. if Southern white man
is there impossible physiologically or other
wise about a Southern white woman loving
colored man in the same manner if not
degree9
This triple killing in Mississippi would
have been terrible thing if the persons
concerned in it had all been colored or had
been the old. old story, the fight of two men
over the woman, story as old as the
human race. In this case there entered
other elements which make it not mere
killing. not merely murder and suicide. but
tragedy Of the deepest kind There entered
not only the natural rivalry between the
two men for the favor of the one woman,
bnt it was further complicated by the laws
of the State of Mississippi which absolutely
forbade one of the men. no matter how
much he loved the woman to seek to make
her his lawful wife. Here was the law Of
the state working like memorable fate to
wreak vengeance