Warning: the following contains graphic details that the reader may find disturbing.
On Saturday afternoon, August 12, 1911, Mrs. L. Redden Campbell of rural Durant was assaulted and shot by a man labeled as a “negro fiend” by the Caddo Herald and “the devil on earth” by the Durant Daily Democrat. Mrs. Campbell, at home with her four young children, had taken pity on him and given him some lunch. He repaid her by attacking her and shooting her in the hip and stomach. A neighbor heard her screams and the shots and ran to investigate. If not for his quick action in fetching the doctor, she would have died on her front porch.
Mrs. Campbell described her attacker as a heavyset Negro man in a suit and derby hat and she was positive she could identify him if he was captured.
Before begging food at the Campbell home, John Lee had robbed and pistol- whipped a young Negro flag man working on the railroad north of Durant. He attempted to hold up a store, but upon learning that the owner had taken the daily receipts home, went there instead. He was scared off by the son’s shotgun. He went on to Platter where he ransacked a farmhouse. By that time deputy sheriff McFatridge and a large army of men from all over the county had caught up with him and they surrounded him in a ravine. He refused to surrender and got off nine shots before he was killed at 11:15 p.m.
Lee’s body was taken to Durant where the Democrat reported that it was viewed by “hundreds of people, both from the city and county.” Because of the late hour, it was decided that Mrs. Campbell would not be disturbed until Sunday morning. At that time, she identified Lee as her attacker. Her young daughter also positively identified him.
After determining they had killed the correct man, Lee’s body was moved to a vacant lot on Main Street. between first and second avenues. It was covered with wood scraps from the lumber yard and set on fire. After several hours, the Democrat reported that nothing was left “save ashes and a few burned parcels.”
Mrs. Campbell died Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. Her family traveled to Cooper, Texas, to lay her to rest.
Further investigation produced a “strong suspicion” that John Lee had also robbed and killed a man near Armstrong on August 1st. He was seen in Caddo several times after that, spending money and causing trouble among the local section hands.
Mrs. Campbell’s death was just one of several that summer, and what followed was a race riot that impacted the entire state. Monday night, a warning was posted by the Kaddo Klan giving the blacks of Caddo a week to leave town. It took a little longer than that, but by September 7 the Caddo Herald reported that not one of its 250 black residents remained. They had abandoned their homes, farms, businesses, school, churches, and animals to flee to all-black communities and to other states.
In September a grand jury indicted ten white men for unlawful assembly, three for rioting and several for circulating notices warning Negroes to leave Caddo.
Was your family here in 1911? Mine was. My greataunt Martha was only eight years old, but the events of that summer made such an impact on her that she wrote about it in her autobiography decades later: “There was one sad incident during that time I must mention. When we first moved into that part of Oklahoma there were quite a few Negro people. Then, somewhere around Durant, a black man raped and killed a white woman. Of course he was caught and strung up, but the white people didn’t stop there. They started a concerted move to drive all Negroes out of the country, and they succeeded. But the cold-blooded, heartless cruelty that was vented against many innocent blacks would make a story that is a shame to remember, or think about. Decent hard-working black men were dragged from their beds at night and flogged just because they didn’t want to leave their homes. Houses were burned to the ground, and many black families were forced to flee with little more than the clothes on their backs. I remember thinking, even as a child, that the crimes committed against the blacks were as bad as the crime of the rapist-murderer. It was a scary time. Some of the younger Negroes resented it and attempted to fight back. And nobody felt safe. Mama, who was an expert with a .22 rifle, was never far away from that gun and for a time we children were not allowed out of sight of some grown-up at any times. It was soon over for the drive against the blacks was fierce and they were soon all gone. But it was one of the black marks against that part of the world.”
You may be sitting there wondering why you’ve never heard about this disturbing time in Oklahoma history. Or you may be questioning why this version differs in some way from the one you grew up hearing. That’s the problem with history. There are always multiple versions of it. No matter how widely publicized an event, the retelling of it is slightly altered by who is telling the story and why. Editors have political views and personal beliefs. Communities have standards and expectations. There are always prominent citizens who do or definitely do not want their name in the paper. Also, the best stories are often told by the victors, not the victims.
There is currently a movement to “reframe” our history in a variety of ways and for an even greater variety of reasons. The problem is that one story leads to another and blends in with yet another, until soon it isn’t clear what we are framing. And how much history do you change before someone challenges you? Some well-intentioned folks hope to protect our children from the “ugliness” of history. However, the fact that so much of it is already digitalized and floating around in cyberspace means a curious student can find out almost anything without our permission or protection.
History is a record of decisions already made, actions already taken, and consequences already endured. We can’t change any of that. All we can do is study what our ancestors did and learn from them. What we learn is up to us.