Don Palabraz

{The lynching of her three friends was the start of Ida B. Wells’ campaign against the vile crime}

The Lynching of Moss, McDowell and Stewart

Back in the day on March 9th, 1892, a white mob in Memphis, Tennessee lynched Thomas Moss, Clavin McDowell, and Henry Stewart. The three African-American men had just recently opened “The People’s Grocery Company,” before it became a focus of racist hatred. The new black-owned establishment was located directly across the street from a white-owned grocery store that previously enjoyed a monopoly. Blaming the “People’s Grocery Company” for loss of business, a white mob assembled and planned to run the black businessmen out of town. Hearing of the impending confrontation, the black grocers armed themselves and repelled the attacking mob wounding three. White media outlets sensationalized the news arousing another mob to assemble and attack the jail cells where the three were held. Moss, McDowell, and Stewart were dragged out and lynched.

The three had been friends of Ida B. Wells, an African-American newspaper editor and journalist. She wrote of the outrage and urged blacks to leave Memphis. They were the first words written in her long and acclaimed crusade against lynching.