This year you’ll undoubtedly be overwhelmed with news of Belleville, Ill. and its 200th anniversary, taking you from its humble beginnings to visits by future President JFK, to the celebration of native sons such as Buddy “Jed Clampett” Ebsen of Beverly Hillbillies fame.
What won’t be celebrated is a dark day 111 years ago, when David Wyatt, a “negro” teacher from Brooklyn, Ill., was lynched by a mob of 200 white men and hung on the Belleville Public Square, mutilated, then burned to a crisp as men women and children gathered and cheered, creating a festive picnic-like atmosphere.
Accounts of the horrific June 8, 1903 event are well documented, in graphic detail, in the book “100 Years of Lynching” by Ralph Ginzburg, as well as through accounts by the New York Herald, New York Times and the Belleville Daily Advocate.
According to the Advocate, Wyatt went to St. Clair County superintendent of schools Charles Hertel’s office to simply renew his teaching certificate. Upon being denied Wyatt allegedly left, then returned. Accounts of the incident say that Wyatt argued with and then shot Hertel, subsequently struggling with Hertel and an assistant.
Wyatt was eventually arrested by police, as cries of “Lynch him!” came from the crowd which had, by now, gathered outside of the Belleville jail.
Mayor Fred J. Kern (great-grandfather of St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark A. Kern) “mounted a box near the front of the jail and … told (the crowd) that the law should speedily take its course … His remarks were greeted with scoffing,” reported the Advocate.
The New York Herald reported that Mayor Kern “is understood to have given orders that no shots be fired” (what about no lynching?); but to no avail. Mayor Kern and other officials “consulted and agreed that to oppose the crowd with force would not be good policy,” reported the Advocate. “Kern opposed this on the grounds that it would make the people angry.”
So rather than incite a riot (as opposed to a lynching), “Mayor Kern telephoned to the police station half an hour later (after the lynching) and ordered that an undertaker be directed to remove what remained of the body,” reported the Advocate.
How civil of Mayor Kern (then) and how convenient for Belleville, Ill. (now) to ignore yet another episode in its 200-year history of sordid and repeated racial strife.
Happy 200th anniversary, Belleville. Here’s hoping that the next 200 years will be racism and lynch-free.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com or follow at Twitter@JamesTIngram.
