Repairing Senate's Record on Lynching

Repairing Senate's Record on Lynching
'Long Overdue' Apology Would Be Congress's First for Treatment of Blacks

By Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 11, 2005; Page A01

Anna Holmes remembers hearing about the bridge when she was a little girl.

It stood somewhere near the spot where the Collington and Western branches of the Patuxent River met in Upper Marlboro, less than a quarter-mile from the Marlboro jail.

Fred Tutman of Prince George's County sits next to a tree on his family's land that a previous owner used for lynching. (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

75 Years Later, Scars Linger
James Cameron can still recall the feel of the rope around his neck.

"I used to hear them talking about the lynchings," said Holmes, 79, who grew up in central Prince George's County.

It was on the bridge that a black man named Stephen Williams, accused of manhandling a white woman, was beaten and hanged about 3 in the morning on Oct. 20, 1894. A masked mob snatched him from his jail cell and dragged him as he pleaded for his life.

"When the Marlboro bridge was reached the rope was quickly tied to the railing and amid piteous groans Williams was hurled into eternity," The Washington Post reported.

At the time, there was no federal law against lynching, and most states refused to prosecute white men for killing black people. The U.S. House of Representatives, responding to pleas from presidents and civil rights groups, three times agreed to make the crime a federal offense. Each time, though, the measure died in the Senate at the hands of powerful southern lawmakers using the filibuster.

The Senate is set to correct that wrong Monday, when its members will vote on a resolution to apologize for the failure to enact an anti-lynching law first proposed 105 years ago.
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