Jim Crow Didn’t End — It Changed

Understanding how Jim Crow exists in society today

“Nigger if you can read, you’d better run. If you can’t read, you’d better run anyway.”

In 1920, forty-six-year-old Arkansas sharecropper Henry Lowry was involved in a nasty dispute with his landowner over a sum of money. The argument resulted in Lowry shooting a man in self-defense. Lowry ran for his life — knowing his fate if he stayed.

He made it as far as El Paso, Texas, before the deputies caught up with him. Authorities convicted Lowry of murder and sentenced him lynching. But instead of the typical hanging, Lowery was to meet his fate by fire.

A crowd of around 500 gathered to watch the spectacle take place — including his wife and child. The participants bound and chained him to a huge log, spreading sticks and leaves at his feet.

They then dowsed gasoline on dead plant material, and stepped back to watch as white-hot light consumed the innocent man. The onlookers gazed up at their success — and seemed to pull energy from the flames as they giddily tossed more rubble into the fire, watching it rise higher…inch by inch. Lowry tried to end his suffering by choking on the ashes that engulfed him, but crowd members waved the ashes away.