He was dragged by his neck through town behind a horse, according to Davis. In the first, a man was shot and hanged in Weber County in 1869.Īnother man was killed in Salt Lake City 14 years later. Marshall’s hanging was the last of three documented lynchings of black men in Utah, according to research by The Tribune. “Community solidarity (and racism) precluded the grand jury from gathering evidence to bring the lynchers to trial,” Gerlach wrote. Historian Larry Gerlach, who wrote the book “Blazing Crosses in Zion,” said it was common knowledge that the men were part of the KKK, which started in Utah about two years after the NAACP branch. Photographs show men, women and children smiling by the tree after he died.ĭern called the event “a crime and a disgrace.” But the 11 men charged with the lynching were later freed without a trial. When Marshall lost consciousness, the mob lit matches under his bare feet to wake him. George Dern take action after the 1925 lynching of a black man in Price.Ī group of Price residents slowly hanged Robert Marshall, who was accused of killing a deputy sheriff despite little evidence. In one of the Salt Lake City chapter’s first public actions, NAACP leaders demanded that then-Utah Gov. This is the story of some of the biggest moments, the proudest accomplishments and the loudest rallying cries from what is today one of the most active civil rights groups in the state. In recognition of the centennial, Tribune staffers combed through newspaper clippings, letters sent by the Ku Klux Klan and hundreds of photographs conducted and read dozens of interviews and searched through library archives. “There was no place where our records were held.” “We haven’t been able to find certain things,” said current President Jeanetta Williams. State newspapers didn’t commonly cover Utah’s black community until the 1970s The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News for instance, hardly mentioned the local NAACP until 10 years after it was formed. George Hart, also of Calvary Baptist.īut like the chapter’s origin story, much about the history of the group - formed a decade after the national organization - is either untold or undocumented. Now, 100 years later, the NAACP branch is marking its centennial year - including the February 1919 election of its first president, the Rev. “They were the prime movers of civil rights.” France Davis, who presides over Calvary Baptist Church, the state’s most prominent black church, and wrote the book that mentions the attack. “They were very active in bringing about change here in Salt Lake City,” said the Rev. Thurman signed up as one of the earliest members. Steward was named the chapter’s first secretary. And only one book, written decades later, describes it.īut the little-known assault is credited with having a huge impact in Utah: It united the black community and catalyzed members to form the state’s first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The April 1918 attack was mentioned only briefly, days later, in one newspaper, the Salt Lake Telegram. Police had showed up hours after the attack and never identified the soldiers, who were serving at Fort Douglas during World War I.
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