Randolph County AlArchives News.....Klan Flogging in Randolph County July 20, 1927 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 March 5, 2023, 9:18 pm The Roanoke Leader July 20, 1927 Report of Outlawry in Randolph County by Birmingham News The light of publicity is being turned on the numerous cases of white capping that have occurred in various counties of the state, the daily press leading in the work. It seems that many of these cases have been kept secret, due to fear on the part of the victims. But the public is finally becoming aroused as the facts are unearthed. Randolph county comes in for a bunch of unfavorable publicity through an article displayed under large headlines on the front page of last Sundays Birmingham News, alleging eight cases of floggings by masked bands in Randolph County. Some of these extend back over the past twelve months. The Leader is reproducing the article for the interest our readers may have in it. However, this newspaper cannot vouch for the accuracy of all the incidents alleged. The dispatch taken from The News is as follows: Roanoke, Ala., July 16. With Jefferson and Blount County law enforcement officers conducting diligent investigations into floggings by hooded mobs, Randolph County authorities Saturday brought eight cases to light. Lon Royston, 60, semi-invalid night watchman, accused by his assailants of beating his wife, and lashed severely when he denied the charges. Mrs. Luella Horn, 42, mother of four children, dragged from her home eight miles north of Wedowee and beaten by a masked band of 50 men who accused her of improper relations with a neighbor. Fred Inman, 30, of North Randolph County, cruelly flogged by a robed mob which charged him with refusing to allow his wife to visit her sick mother. A man named Gay, 45, of 10 miles northeast of Roanoke, accused by his floggers of living in adultery. A man named Crosson, a stranger in this vicinity, taken into Chambers County and beaten; details were not revealed by the solicitor's office. Tom Garrett, a negro mill hand, taken with two negro women to Roanoke baseball park, where the three of them were lashed. Both Garrett and the two women disappeared the next day. Assistant Solicitor Burns Parker said Saturday night that investigation into, the eight known cases and any other which might be unearthed in the future would be pushed to the fullest extent, and evidence submitted to the Randolph County grand jury when it convenes Aug 16. Royston told Solicitor C. H. Vann and Assistant Solicitor Parker that he had been lured from his home one night several weeks ago by two men who said they wanted to buy some gasoline at the small grocery which he and his wife conduct. When he informed them, he had no gasoline they asked for cigars, he stated. He went next door to the store, and when he unlocked the door they seized him, whisked him into their automobile and took him to a creek bank some distance from his home, where a band of masked men were waiting. "You have been mistreating your wife", Royston told authorities one of the masked figures said. Then he declared, several others spoke up "Yes, you have, and we want a confession". When he denied the charge, they lashed him 50 times, and then, to escape their beating, he admitted the accusation, he told the solicitor the following day explaining he lied. The truth is he told Parker "The truth is he I never have raised a hand against my wife. Mrs. Royston confirmed this assertion, the assistant solicitor said, and acquaintances strengthened it with the statement that Royston had been scalded so badly in a boiler explosion several years ago that he had been virtually a physical wreck ever since. I examined Royston and found that he had been beaten horribly, Parker declared. "This is the worst case yet revealed in the state, in my opinion, and the constituted authorities of Randolph County are going to the bottom of it". Mrs. Horn told Solicitor Vann and Assistant Solicitor Parker that she had admitted the charges of improper relations with a neighbor thrown at her by the masked band which took her from her home, but only after they had administered several heavy blows. She asserted the charges were false and that her admission had been merely to save herself. Three of her children were away from home at the time, but the fourth, an 8- year-old boy, stood by helpless while the half hundred robed gangsters brutally beat his mother. Gay, accused of "living in adultery" by the spokesman of a masked mob of 50, stubbornly denied the charge and unbendingly submitted to a severe lashing of 20 strokes. He maintained his contention of innocence and they beat him again; then they let him go. He had been baited from his home by two unmasked men on the pretense that their automobile had broken down and they wanted assistance, he told authorities. He hurriedly put on his clothes and went with them. When they reached the machine one of the pair suddenly thrust a gun in his side, and at almost the same instant a mob of 50 robed figures surrounded him. Garrett and the two negro women were beaten the night following Royston's abduction and lashing. They were taken to the baseball park, and after the women had been flogged severely Garrett was forced to undress and "run the bases". Like the belligerent Indian tribes which made their captives run the gauntlet, and struck them with clubs, tomahawks, rocks or anything else as the terrified prisoners darted past, Garretts tormentors lined the way round the diamond, principally at the bases, and pummeled him with clubs and heavy leather straps as he ran. He and the two women disappeared the following day. Inman's abductors, numbering about 50, baited him out of his home on a pretense and drubbed him mercilessly on a charge of refusing to permit his wife to visit her mother when the latter was seriously ill in a Dothan hospital. The prowlers were robed. Evidence in the Crosson case was not divulged by the solicitor other than that Crosson had been taken to a point eight miles from Abanda, Ala., and beaten severely. Crosson disappeared and no trace of him has been found. Names of the two unmasked men who induced Royston to leave his home were said Saturday night to be known to Randolph County authorities probing the cases, but if the report was true the solicitor could not be induced to divulge them. The eight cases brought to light thus far in Randolph County were believed by authorities to be only a small part of the number of floggings, most of them being kept quiet, in this and other counties of the state. "Go as far as you like", Parker told newspapermen in an interview Saturday night, Thats what we're going to do. We want justice for these victims, and we believe we have sufficient evidence to get indictments and convictions. State Enforcement Officer Otis Gay is assisting in the Randolph County probes. In regard to the above report will say that Mr. Parker, county solicitor, states that the information given out above was secured largely from other sources by Mr. Hubert Baughan, reporter for the Montgomery Journal, who made a special trip to this county, and who called at the office of the circuit and county solicitors to verify the facts. Editor Leader. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/randolph/newspapers/klanflog2136gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 7.7 Kb