Tennessee Negro Lynched by Six
Sheriff’s Car Crowded to Pavement; Body is Found Hanging From Bridge
Lynched Near Covington | Covington, Tenn., Aug. 17 (AP) — Six masked men, shouting “to hell with the law,” seized a terror stricken negro accused of slaying a white officer from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan today and left his body dangling at the end of a grayed rope after riddling it with bullets.
First Since War
It was the first lynching in Tipton county since the War Between the States and the seventh in the south this year. Circuit Judge R B Baptist, ordering the county grand jury to make a “real investigation” of the disgraceful, horrible crime,” demanded first degree murder indictments against the “night riders,” if their identities can be established.
The body of the negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was found partly submerged in a creek 12 miles south of here.
The rope had given way under the weight of his swaying form. One end of it remained twisted around the outer beam of a steel bridge. The legs were bound at the ankles. The hands were still in the handcuffs placed by officers. More than 30 bullets had pierced the body.
The mobsmen, Sheriff Vaughan said, crowded his car off the highway last night, disarmed him and seized the prisoner. The sheriff was bringing him to Covington to face a charge of slaying City Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., a month ago.
The negro had been held at Memphis because of a previous attempt at violence.
Recognizes None of Them
Sheriff Vaughan said he kept secret the purpose of his trip to Memphis yesterday. He was about 300 yards from Brighton on his return when “a car crowded me off the pavement.”
“Five men with handkerchiefs over their faces jumped out and covered us with pistols,” the sheriff said, adding they dragged the negro from the car. When the negro jerked loose, he was hit with a gun, and dumped into the second car. The sheriff said he recognized none of the men.
[Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Wednesday, August 18, 1937, page 3 – Lynching took place on 17 Aug 1937]
The Lynching of Albert Gooden in Tipton County, Tennessee (1937)
Tipton County, Tennessee in 1937 was a “black belt” area where the largely rural African-American community constituted nearly half of the population. With the smaller percentage of African-Americans living in the towns of Covington, Mason and Brighton, the majority of this population resided on the farms and plantations controlled by descendants of white planters, many of whom had settled in the County during the initial cotton boom of the middle 19th century. A large number of poor landless whites also lived in the County and were in constant competition with African-Americans during the Depression years for limited economic resources. Developments during the early years of the 20th century set the pattern for a greater desperation on the part of small white farmers in the South, many of whom did not own land.
According to the findings of Tolnay and Beck: “between 1900 and 1930, the number of white tenant farmers in the South increased by 61 percent, while the number of black tenants increased twenty-seven percent. As a result, despite their membership in the dominating caste, more rural whites began to sink to the same disadvantaged economic position as blacks. For the first time sizable numbers of southern white farmers found themselves in direct economic competition with southern black farmers.”
When a shooting incident erupted on July 18, 1937 in Mason, Tennessee resulting in the deaths of Jack Bolton, an African-American male 24 years of age, and Night Marshall Chester Doyle, a Deputy Sheriff in Tipton County, the stage was set for one of the most representative acts of racial violence during the period. Press reports indicated that Marshall Doyle was conducting a raid on an illegal gambling establishment operated by Albert Gooden, 25. As a result of a dispute over alleged disrespect by law-enforcement officials towards an African-American woman present during the raid, a conflict ensued where shots were fired on both sides. The deaths of Bolton and Doyle created a chain reaction of events beginning with the arrest of Albert Gooden for the charge of murdering the white Deputy Sheriff, Chester Doyle.
After Gooden was taken into custody in Covington, it was reported that “ten carloads of white men drove to the…jail” with the expressed intention of lynching the suspect in Doyle’s death. Immediately the County Sheriff, Will J. Vaughn, was credited by the press with swiftly removing Gooden from the jail, transporting him 40 miles to a Memphis jail for his security pending the beginning of the trial in Tipton County in August. According to Vaughn, Gooden was taken to Memphis for “safekeeping.”
On the night of August 16, nearly one month after the initial killing of Deputy Sheriff Chester Doyle, Vaughn was transporting Gooden from Memphis to Covington in order to begin the murder trial. During the drive to Covington, the Sheriff claimed that he was forced off the road by a black sedan after crossing the Tipton County border line. This sedan, according to Vaughn, contained six masked white men that he did not recognize, who demanded that he hand over Gooden to them. Vaughn also contended that he was overpowered by five of the masked men who then captured Gooden and forced him into their vehicle and sped away. This story was viewed skeptically by the African-American press because of the lack of information related to the identities of the alleged kidnappers. In addition, the puported masked men making up the mob, left Sheriff Vaughn and businessman John Winford with the car keys to their vehicle after they allegedly left with Gooden.
According to Vaughn, no one else knew about his trip to Memphis and the intended route driven back to Covington on the night of August 16. His passenger and friend, John Winford, a local businessman, was supposedly unaware of the purpose or the specific destiny of the trip to Memphis. However, it was never adequately explained to the Tipton County Grand Jury impaneled by R.B. Baptist to investigate the disappearance and murder of Gooden, the reason why the perpetrators knew exactly where to stop the vehicle driven by the Sheriff. Six hours after the alleged abduction of Gooden, his corpse was supposedly discovered by Vaughn and his deputies nine miles from the area where he was “kidnapped” by the six hooded white men.
The Atlanta Daily World of August 18, 1937 reported on the murder by writing the following:
“The body lay in grotesque quiet beneath the span of a country road bridge. The muddy waters of Beaver Creek, a meandering drainage ditch, lapsed over Gooden’s head while the remainder of his bloody mud-soaked body lay on the bank.”
The article goes on to describe the murder scene:
“His body was punctured with more than 30 bullets. Around his neck looped twice– was a worn plow rope that had broken when the abductors shot their victim and then attempted to hang the body from the bridge.”
In the Covington Leader of August 19, 1937, an article states that:
“The negro was lynched, presumably a short while after his capture, at an iron bridge over the Beaver Bottom drainage canal on a dirt road between Wright’s and Gainsville. The body, however, was not discovered until about 3 o’clock Tuesday morning, when Chief Deputy V. W. Pickens and Special Officer J. T. Scott, both of Covington, were searching the area and found the bridge floor covered with cartridges. They also found lying on the bridge the sheriff’s pistol, which was taken from him by members of the mob.”
The article in the Covington Leader continues by saying that:
“When found the dead negro was still hand-cuffed and was lying on the edge of the canal, his head in the water. A piece of frayed rope, which had either been shot in two or had broken when he was thrown or pushed from the bridge, was still tied about his neck. The other part of the rope was still tied to the bridge. The negro had been riddled with bullets, several dozen bullet wounds being found. The head had been almost severed, apparently from a charge of buckshot. The bottom of the canal is about 15 feet from the top of the bridge railing, and it could not be determined whether his neck was broken before the rope parted or whether he died of pistol and gunshot wounds…. The body was brought here by a colored mortician, the sheriff later turning the dead negro over to his brother, also a mortician.”
In an account published in the Atlanta Daily World on August 25, 1937, which describes the reaction of Gooden’s family to the tragedy, journalist Nat D. Williams of Memphis stated that the body was found “late Monday night, August 16, close to the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church near the Brighton community, between Mason and Covington, two small towns in Tipton County in rural West Tennessee. His mother wouldn’t even look at his remains. She couldn’t stand it. Southern tradition was asking too much–even of a mother. His father, built of a little sterner stuff, and retaining a bit more composure, made the arrangements. His brother, operator of a burial association, looked after the materials and things. He even took one of his hearses and went to Covington early Tuesday morning, after three ‘laws’ (the colored folk call officers that in Tipton County), had awakened him and his wife about six o’clock in the morning and told them that they could ‘go over and get Albert now, or leave him with H.L. Porter,’ the colored undertaker in Covington who first picked up the lynch victim’s body off the bridge.”
Williams then remarks that: “(Funny thing about Porter…he got lost on his way to get the body…he did not give any reason.) Porter and other leading colored folk in Covington and nearby communities won’t have much to say about the lynching pro or con. They take the attitude of letting the white folk do all the worrying.”
Despite the convening of a grand jury and the hearing of testimony by a least ten persons, including law enforcement personnel in the County, no indictments were served in the murder. With national attention focused on the epidemic of lynching during 1937, state officials and the white press in Tennessee roundly condemned the lynching. Circuit Court Judge R.B. Baptist, the convenor of the grand jury which was charged with investigating the lynching, stated that the murder of Gooden was “one of the most horrible and disgraceful crimes of Tipton County…and it is the duty of the grand jury to make not a perfunctory– but a full, complete and searching investigation and go to the bottom of this thing”. Press accounts of the lynching claimed that it was the first since the Civil War in the County. However, at least one other lynching occured in November of 1894, when Needham Smith was shot to death after being falsely accused of the rape of a Caucasian woman.
Despite strong words from the Judge, the white press and the Governor, who offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of the lynchers, the murderers of Albert Gooden were never brought to trial. Sheriff W. J. Vaughn maintained that he did not know the identities of the masked men who had also removed the license plates from the black sedan that they were driving at the time of the supposed abduction of Gooden. Even though this lynching received national press coverage, and was the subject of many condemnatory editorials in southern white newspapers, the Wagner-Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill remained stalled in the United States Congress well into 1938. The Roosevelt Administration remained relatively silent on the increased outbreak of lynchings during 1937. The executive branch of the government did not want to force an open split with the southern Democrats over the question of racial violence carried out againt African-Americans.
[Wire, Pan-African News. Two Case Studies in Race Terror During the Great Depression in Southwest Tennessee, 1 Jan. 1970, panafricannews.blogspot.com/2006/10/two-case-studies-in-race-terror-during.html.]
Negro Held For Killing Marshal Taken To Memphis
City Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason Slain In Raid
MEMPHIS, July 19 – (AP) – Sheriff Will Vaughn of Tipton county rushed a negro murder suspect to Memphis from Covington, Tenn., early today when he said he learned a mob was headed for the Covington jail, bent on violence.
The negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was arrested in connection with the slaying Saturday night of City Marshal Chester Doyle, 33, of Mason, Tenn.
Vaughn said Doyle and a negro, Jack Bolton, 24, were shot and killed at Mason during a raid officers staged on a “gambling joint”.
Vaughn said he learned a mob was forming early today and that he slipped away with Gooden. The negro was lodged in the mob-proof county jail here.
“Ten carloads of white men drove to the Covington jail shortly after I left,” he said. They wanted Gooden, but they didn’t get him. He will remain in Memphis for safekeeping.”
The shooting took place in the “back room” of what the sheriff said was a “dance hall”. He said a dice game was in progress when he and Doyle arrived there to make the raid.
The sheriff said Doyle’s shots killed the negro, Bolton, and wounded another negro, Oliver Twist.
[Negro Held for Killing Marshal Taken To Memphis, The Jackson Sun, Jackson, TN, 19 Jul 1937, Pg 2]
Grand Jury Probes Tipton Lynching
Covington, Tenn., Aug. 18 – (AP) – A Grand Jury of farmers and merchants undertook today to learn the identities of the “to hell with the law” lynchers of a small town Negro.
Sheriff W. J. Vaughan offered to testify “to clear the matter up properly” but the jury’s task appeared difficult in the face of his earlier statement he could not identify any one of the six masked men who snatched the prisoner from his custody Monday night on a lonely stretch of highway and left the body at the end of a rope.
Apparently the brutal lynching occurred unexpectedly, as a month had passed since the Negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was arrested for the slaying of Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., outwardly, at least, the tempers of Tipton County residents had cooled.
Spurred by a ringing denunciation of the lynching as “one of the most horrible and disgraceful crimes in the history of the country” from Circuit Judge R. B. Baptist, the jurymen proceeded to hear “a number” of witnesses.
[Grand Jury Probes Tipton Lynching, Nashville Banner, Nashville, TN, 18 Aug 1937, Pg 7]
Lynching in Tennessee.
WITH HANDCUFFS on his wrists the bullet-riddled body of Albert Gooden, 35-year-old negro, was found with a broken rope around his neck beneath a bridge on a country road 12 miles from Covington, Tenn., Tuesday morning, after he had been taken from the Sheriff Monday afternoon by a band of six masked men.
Sheriff Vaughan said the prisoner was taken from him, after the masked men had forced him to stop his automobile, as he was taking the negro from Memphis to Covington for a hearing Tuesday, on a charge of slaying Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., during a raid on a dice game July 17.
The prisoner had been taken to Memphis for safe keeping until Monday afternoon. The sheriff said that when the masked men stopped his car, five of them with drawn pistols approached and said “we want that negro sheriff.” He said he was taken “completely by surprise”, did not recognize any of the men and did not get the number of their car. He said he urged them to “let the law take its course”, but one of them shouted “To hell with the law!”
They dragged the negro from the sheriff’s automobile, then the prisoner, handcuffed, broke from them and ran down the road. Two of them overtook him, pounded him over the head with the buts of their pistols and dragged him back to their automobile and rode away, leaving the sheriff and his companion, a merchant, according to Vaughan’s report.
Next day the negro’s body, with 30 bullet holes in it, was found in a ditch or ravine, beneath a bridge, and on the bridge was the sheriff’s pistol.
The lynching was the seventh in the South this year and the first in Tipton county, Tenn., since the War Between the States.
[Lynching in Tennessee, The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, 22 Aug 1937, Pg 42]
Negro Lynched Near Covington
Covington, Tenn., Aug. 17. (AP) – A negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was taken from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan by a band of six masked men after his arrest in the slaying of Marshal Chester Doyle, Mason, Tenn. His bullet riddled body was found later hanging beneath a highway bridge. The Sheriff said he had no clues to the men taking the negro.
Circuit Judge P. B. Baptist appealed for first degree murder indictments against Tipton county’s first lynch mob since the Civil war.
[Negro Lynched Near Covington, The Greeneville Sun, Greeneville, TN, 17 Aug 1937, Pg 1]
6 Masked Men Lynch Negro In Tennessee
COVINGTON, TENN., (AP) – Six masked men shouting “To hell with the law,” seized a Negro accused of slaying a white officer from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan yesterday and left his body dangling at the end of a frayed rope after riddling it with bullets.
It was the first lynching in Tipton County since the War Between the States and the seventh in the South this year. Circuit Judge R. B. Baptist, ordering the county Grand Jury to make a “real investigation” of the “disgraceful, horrible crime,” demanded first degree murder indictments against the “night riders,” if their identities can be established.
The body of the Negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was found partly submerged in a creek 12 miles south of here.
The rope had given way under the weight of his swaying form. One end of it remained twisted around the outer beam of a steel bridge. The legs were bound at the ankles. The hands were still in the handcuffs placed by officers. More than 30 bullets had pierced the body.
The mobsmen, Sheriff Vaughan said, crowded his car off the highway Tuesday night, disarmed him and seized the prisoner. The sheriff was bringing him to Covington to face a charge of slaying City Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., a month ago.
Was Held at Memphis
The Negro had been held at Memphis because of a previous attempt of violence.
Judge Baptist told the Grand Jury any one participating or even “aiding or abetting” in the lynching “is guilty of murder in the first degree.”
Warning against a “perfunctory” inquiry, he said that any juror not in sympathy with such a course should so inform him.
Sheriff Vaughan said he kept secret the purpose of his trip to Memphis Tuesday. He was about 300 yards from Brighton on his return when “a car crowded me off the pavement.”
“Five men with handkerchiefs over their faces jumped out and covered us with pistols while a sixth remained at the wheel of their machine,” the sheriff said adding they dragged the Negro from the car. The Negro jerked loose, but was hit with a gun and dumped into the second car.
“I tried to reason with the men,” Sheriff Vaughan declared, “asking them to let the courts decide the case, but they laughed at me and one said, “To hell with the law.”
The men drove away, taking the sheriff’s pistol.
“I am satisfied the men were from the Mason locality,” said Vaughan, “I would not be able to identify one of them.”
[6 Masked Men Lynch Negro in Tennessee | The Times Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, 18 Aug 1937, Pg 1]
Negro Slaying Suspect is Lynched
COVINGTON, Tenn., Aug. 17 (AP). The bullet-punctured body of a 35-year-old negro slaying suspect was found hanging beneath a highway bridge 12 miles east of here early Tuesday.
The negro, Albert Gooden, was taken from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan by a band of six masked men late Monday while the sheriff was bringing his prisoner by automobile from Memphis to Covington.
Gooden was accused of slaying Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., July 17, and was being brought here for a hearing Tuesday after having been held in Memphis for safe keeping.
Sheriff Vaughan said an automobile carrying the six men drew abreast of his car about eight miles from here and forced him to stop. While two of the masked marauders held pistols on the sheriff and a companion, Gooden was hauled from the officer’s automobile.
The sheriff said he did not recognize the men, did not get the license number of their car and could not explain how they knew he was moving the negro.
The sheriff said he begged the men to “let the law take its course,” explaining that Gooden probably would get a speedy trial and a death sentence.
“To hell with that,” one of the men replied.
Gooden, terror-stricken, broke from the masked men and fled down the highway. Two of the men overtook him, pounded him over the head with the butts of their pistols and dragged him back to their automobile. They left the sheriff and his companion, a Covington merchant, at the roadside.
Six hours later Chief Deputy Sheriff V. W. Pickens and Traffic Officer J. T. Scott of Covington noticed empty cartridges on a bridge between Brighton and Mason, Tenn. They flashed a light over the edge of the span and saw Gooden’s body, partially submerged in a drainage ditch. It contained more than 30 bullet holes.
Residents said it was the first lynching in the history of Tipton County.
[Negro Slaying Suspect is Lynched, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, TX, 17 Aug 1937, Pg 22]
Jurors Hear Ten Person Lynching Case
Covington, Tenn., Sept. 1 – (AP) – The Tipton County Grand Jury reconvened today to resume its investigation of the lynching the night of August 16 of Albert Gooden, 35, accused Negro slayer.
Charged by Circuit Judge R. B. Baptist to make “a full, complete and searching investigation,” the jury met the day after the bullet-riddled body of the Negro was found near here, questioned several person and recessed.
Since then Governor Browning offered a reward of $5,000 for information leading to conviction of the lynchers who obtained the Negro by force from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan when returning the prisoner here from a Memphis Jail.
Gooden was accused of slaying Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., July 17, and was removed to Memphis for safe-keeping when the Sheriff feared mob violence.
Subpoenas for ten or “possibly more” persons to appear before the jury today were issued yesterday. District Atty. Gen. George C. Watkins declined to divulge the plans for today’s questioning.
[Jurors Hear Ten Persons in Lynching Case, Nashville Banner, Nashville, TN, 1 Sep 1937, Pg 5]
Attempt To Learn Who Were Negro’s Lynchers
GRAND JURY HEAR EVIDENCE AT COVINGTON.
COVINGTON, Tenn., Aug. 19. (AP) – A grand jury of farmers and merchants undertook today to learn the identities of the six masked men who cried “to hell with the law” as they lynched a Negro murder suspect.
Sheriff W. J. Vaughan offered to testify “to clear the matter up properly.” Previously he had said he could not identify any of the six masked men who snatched the prisoner from him Monday night.
The prisoner was Albert Gooden, 35, accused the slaying of Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn.
[Attempt to Learn Who Were Negro’s Lynchers, The Evening News, Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, 19 Aug 1937, Pg 13]
Negro Murder Suspect Slain
6 masked Men Take Victim from Sheriff, Shoot and Hang Him.
Covington, Tenn., Aug. 17 (AP) – The bullet-punctured body of a 35-year-old negro slaying suspect was found hanging beneath a highway bridge 12 miles east of here early today.
The negro, Albert Gooden, was taken from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan by a band of six masked men late yesterday while the sheriff was bringing his prisoner by automobile from Memphis to Covington.
Accused of Killing Marshal.
Gooden was accused of slaying Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., July 17 and was being brought here for a hearing today after having been held in Memphis for safekeeping.
Sheriff Vaughan said an automobile carrying the six men drew abreast of his car about eight miles from here and forced him to stop. While two of the masked marauders held pistols on the sheriff and a companion, Gooden was hauled from the officer’s automobile.
The sheriff said he did not recognize the men, did not get the license number of their car and could not explain how they knew he was moving the negro.
[Negro Murder Suspect Slain, The Republic, Columbus, Indiana, 17 Aug 1937, Pg 6]
TENNESSEE MOB LYNCHES NEGRO
“Real Investigation” of Crime Demanded by Circuit Judge
COVINGTON, Tenn., Aug 17. – (AP) – Six masked men, shouting “To hell with the law,” seized a terror-stricken negro accused of slaying a white officer from Sheriff W. J. Vaughan today and left his body dangling at the end of a frayed rope after riddling it with bullets.
It was the first lynching in Tipton county since the War Between the States and the seventh in the South this year. Circuit Judge R. B. Baptist, ordering the county grand jury to make a “real investigation” of the “disgraceful, horrible crime,” demanded first degree murder indictments against the “night riders,” if their identities can be established.
The body of the Negro, Albert Gooden, 35, was found partly submerged in a creek 12 miles south of here.
The mobsmen, Sheriff Vaughan said, crowded his car off the highway last night, disarmed him and seized the prisoner. The sheriff was bringing him to Covington to face a charge of slaying City Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason, Tenn., a month ago.
The Negro had been held at Memphis because of a previous attempt at violence.
[Tennessee Mob Lynches Negro, The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, SC, 18 Aug 1937, Pg 3]
Jury Adjourns After Inquiry In Lynch Case
Covington, Tenn., Sep. 2 – (Special) – The Tipton County Grand Jury adjourned today with making a report on an inquiry concerning the lynching of a Negro near Mason.
The jury will meet again on October 1 at which time the investigation will be continued.
The jury reported this morning at 11:20 a. m. after hearing nine witnesses Wednesday and one today. Several minor indictments were returned but no report was made to the court on the lynching case.
In the meantime, Sheriff W. J. Vaughan said he and his officers would continue to work on the case.
Atty. Gen. George C. Watkins indicated little had been learned regarding the identity of the six masked men who took the Negro from Sheriff Vaughan.
The Negro, Albert Gooden, had been accused of killing Marshal Chester Doyle of Mason. Gooden was taken from Vaughan on the highway, hanged from a bridge and riddled with shot. The Sheriff was taking Gooden from Memphis, where he had been kept for safekeeping after a first mob threatened to lynch him, to Covington.
[Jury Adjourns After Inquiry In Lynch Case, Nashville Banner, Nashville, TN 2 Sep 1937, Pg 12]