By Dennis Sears
Title: Correspondence regarding the lynching of Samuel J. Bush in Decatur, Illinois on June 2, 1893
ID: 01/02/02/POST-1650 MS 0678
Creator: Baker, Nathan Martin (1837-1922)
Extent: 10.0 Items
Arrangement: Items are arranged in chronological order and printed transcriptions accompany the letters.
Date Acquired: 03/28/2014
Languages: English [eng]
In late May 1893, Samuel J. Bush, an African American from Mississippi, was travelling by foot through Central Illinois and was accused of rape and attempted rape by two White farm wives near the town of Mt. Zion. He was eventually found in Moultrie County and incarcerated in the Macon County Courthouse jail in Decatur on June 2nd. At 1:45 a.m. on June 3rd, a mob of vigilantes from Mt. Zion stormed the jail and lynched Bush from a nearby telephone pole. Nathan Martin Baker was a minister in the Decatur Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and wrote a letter urging States Attorney Isaac R. Mills to prosecute members of the mob. Subsequently, he published an "Open Letter" in the Decatur Daily Republican on July 3rd (reprinted at least once more on July 9th) decrying the mob's transgression of the law and the comcomitant insult to any possible justice in the case. Baker's column initiated a series of personal correspondence with readers both in support and opposed to the sentiments expressed therein.
An account of the lynching and its aftermath is found in Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua's "'Join hand and hearts with law and order' : The 1893 Lynching of Samuel J. Bush and the Response of Decatur's African American Community" (Illinois Historical Journal, vol. 83, Autumn 1990, pp. 187-200).
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Acquisition Source: Swann Auction Galleries