The Lower Journalism

Today I got a call from a student editor for Vox Magazine, a publication of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She was calling on a cell phone to verify quotations from an interview a student reporter had conducted with me the week before. The subject was, of course, the James T. Scott lynching. The cell connection was so spotty that I could only hear about 4 words out of 5, which was making me a bit nervous, but I okayed a  half dozen sentences more or less on faith. Then the editor read this line.

Hunt says that although various incidents could have sparked the lynch mob, the most likely was due to tax incentives.

I said, "You'll have to read that one to me again. The phone connection is really rotten. It sounded like you had me saying that the lynching was "due to tax incentives"?
   She said, "Yes, that's right, I have, "tax incentives."
   "Does that make any sense at all to you?"
    "Well, no, not really."

Eventually the editor and I figured out what the source of the confusion was. I had read the student reporter the following two paragraphs, published on page one of the Columbia Daily Tribune the morning before the Scott lynching:

   It is generally believed that Scott is guilty of the crime and Miss Almstedt’s identification makes certain now that he was the man who attacked her.

   There has been much talk of mob activity and many men of sound judgment who do not believe in mob law are of the opinion that if it is positively proven that the negro is the man who committed the crime the taxpayers should be saved any costs that might accrue from a trial and that summary justice should be dealt to him.

There are more lessons to be learned here than I will take the space to list. Some make you want to laugh, some make you want to scream. I almost wish I had let the "tax incentives" quotation stand. It might have driven a few more people to read that front page story from 1923 and to consider the difference between merely inept journalism and competence turned into a deadly weapon.

Osama and Scott

On several occasions when I talked to people about the lynching of James Scott, they have asked me whether I thought such a thing could happen in Columbia, or in America, today. My answer prior to May 1, 2011, was generally a cautious "No." I'd say something like, "It would be naive to think that we have entirely left behind our wolfish instinct to become part of a pack, to abandon all human sympathy for some victim/enemy, and to rejoice in destroying him." But then I would say, "our wolfishness these days takes the form of virtual lynchings rather than actual ones." And often I would point to savage attacks on individuals made in anonymous postings on websites and such. Or to graffitti in bathroom stalls.

Watching America's, and Columbia's, reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden has changed my answer. One day several hundred sober Columbia's gather to commemorate the murderous mob action that took the life of James T. Scott in 1923. The very next night several hundred people gathered on the University campus to celebrate the death of Osama. Like their predecessors of 1923, the revelers of 2011 were predominantly young white men, often fairly drunk ones, celebrating the death a darker-skinned man who had at last "got what was coming to him."

Osama isn't Scott. I believe that Scott was an innocent man, killed because he superficially resembled a guilty one at a point when many in Columbia wanted a scapegoat to vent their rage on. I have no brief for Osama, and believe him to have been guilty of horrible crimes. Nonetheless, the celebrations on campus after midnight on May 2, 2011, brought to mind all to clearly the "celebrations" after midnight on April 29, 1923. There was a kind of tribal violence in the air that will prevent my saying quite so confidently as I used to that we are past the period where our town, or another American town, could countenance a lynching.

The James T. Scott Memorial Service

One of many things I learned in working with the James Scott monument project is that some stories run so deep in families and communities that it is hard for an observer from the outside to understand their significance.
     A reporter sent in from out of town might have noticed the amount of hugging in Columbia yesterday was somewhere above the national average. He or she might have noticed a lot of people chasing around the crowd because they felt it important to talk to particular people on this day. I don't know how an observant reporter could have missed the amount of emotion that was running just beneath the surface and periodically rising to the surface.
     But I doubt that any news report will capture either the complexity and depth of the Scott story of 1923 or of the Columbia story in 2011. So I'm reduced to testifying, as they say. If you had been there, if you had really been there, you would have found the experiences extraordinary and moving.
     I'm posting as a separate page this morning (you'll find it on the bar to the right of this blog) my own statement, read at the memorial service, about Hermann Almstedt's heroism on the night of the Scott lynching. I noticed this morning national press stories praising Professor Almstedt for going to Stewart Bridge in 1923 to defend a man he believed was innocent, which is a misstatement of the facts. The facts tell a deeper story and one that makes his actions that night even more significant.

Evidence that James Scott was Lynched for a Crime He Did Not Commit

I have just posted as a separate page on this blog the text of a talk I gave in January at the State Historical Society of Missouri. If you are reading this note from my Amazon author page, clicking on the title of this post will get you to http://DGHunt.blogspot.com. Once there, you should find a link to the Evidence lecture in the right hand column.
     Because some people may be more inclined to read the lecture on their Kindles, I will also post the lecture as a Kindle book at the minimal price of 99 cents.

Making contact with the family of a hero

Readers of Summary Justice will remember Charles Nutter, the 20-year-old journalism student who stayed next to James Scott during the dreadful hour when Scott was marched to Stewart Bridge and lynched. Nutter is high on my list of unsung heroes. He pleaded with the mob that night, trying to save Scott's life. He then reported honestly on what he saw in articles in the Columbia Missourian; and at the trial of George Barkwell (a leader of the mob) he gave firm, courageous testimony. He was thoroughly hated by many Columbians for this good behavior and was undoubtedly in physical danger.

As a member of the James T. Scott Monument Committee, I've been searching for Nutter's descendants, hoping to find one who could be publicly thanked and recognized for what Nutter did back in 1923. Last night I had the pleasure of talking with Charles W. Nutter, Charles P's son. It was a remarkable conversation for several reasons. Charles P. Nutter didn't discuss the Scott lynching with his family, and Charles W. knew about it chiefly through a single newspaper article that tells only a fragment of the story. He was pleased to hear that we would be able to flesh out the picture for him, and pleased that his father would be recognized for his character and courage. But Charles W. could tell me a good deal I didn't know about his father's courage in later life. He told me about a confrontation with Joseph Stalin and a meeting with Agosto Sandino, godfather of the Sandinista movement.

Charles W. is now trying to rearrange his schedule so that he can come to the April 30 event where his father will be recognized and a proper monument will be placed on Scott's grave. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Is this a job? A hobby? Volunteer work?

In 2005, for reasons that defy rational examination, I left a tenured job in the English department at the University of Missouri. For a time after that I attempted to balance a serious bit of volunteer work (tutoring African refugees in English) with writing. Gradually it became clear that I hadn't the kind of brain that would allow me to do both well, and so I went over to writing, essentially as if it were a full-time job.

Now, like many self-publishing writers, I wonder where I am. I am selling some books--let's say about one a day on average--almost enough to buy my own lunch, though not enough to treat someone else. Allowing for the time already spent in research and writing, I suppose I might be making a dime or so an hour. This doesn't sound like a job. It might be a hobby.

On the other hand, the work serves a social purpose. Summary Justice is contributing to a reconsideration of the history race relations in Columbia, and Watching the Watchers may be having a faint influence on discussions about law enforcement and race. So maybe this is volunteer work after all, though my conscience won't allow me to say that it is as important as the ESL tutoring I did before or nearly as important as the work of many other volunteers around town.

The closest analogy I can find at this moment to what I'm doing is the non-profit organization where workers earn below-market wages, but further social causes. My wages are considerably below even "below-market" wages, but that's fine. And even if it weren't fine, I almost feel I wouldn't have any choice. At this point, it feels like a compulsion.

Brushwood 1919-1940 on Kindle

I have recently been talking with a 92-year-old Columbian named Mack Brushwood about what the town was like when he was growing up. These were the days when automobiles were novelties, electricity was available only in the downtown area, and a front porch with a battery-powered radio could attract a clutch of neighbors on a Saturday night. Mr. Brushwood is such a good talker that I decided to rework the interview material into a memoir and post it as a short Kindle book. It's nothing fancy: just a "being there" picture of the prohibition and Great Depression eras.

The Perils and Pleasures of Writing Local History

I answered the phone yesterday and got the voice of a woman who started right in. "I read your book. Liked it. I have a couple of questions. How did Regina Almstedt pronounce her name? Which house did she lived in? Are you sure she was raped? I hated your cover. You should have had a picture of the bridge. Why would you use that picture on the cover? What does it have to do with anything?" She paused for a breath, and something that resembled a normal conversation followed. She told me that she believed that she was living in the house the Almstedts lived in back in 1923. She said she would be at a talk I am giving next week, but that she didn't want me to mention that she lived in the old Almstedt place. That was between us, a secret.

No problem, since she hung up without mentioning her name.

Names, another Kindle booklet

I just posted "Names," a new Kindle booklet. It tells a story I have been researching and mulling over for several years, the miraculous escape from slavery of a young man here in Columbia in 1833. I won't spoil the story by giving away the plot, but I will say that the circumstances of Sant's winning his freedom include something that must have looked to him and to others like divine intervention. The booklet also gives what I think is a useful overview of the status of the slave under Missouri law before the horrible Dred Scott decision. 99 cents. Go ahead, make my day!