Phoenix SC riots – “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman
by
John C Abercrombie
As we start the post there are several fats that need clarification.
• Phoenix is a community in Greenwood, SC
• Greenwood, South Carolina is not the same as Greenwood in the Tulsa, Oklahoma “Black Wall Street Massacre
• The events took place November 8, 1898, not 1921
• One of the instigators is “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, a man honored on the campus of Clemson University
• Compared to today the positions of two major parties are juxtaposed. The Democrats were a party of Whites opposed to Black participation in the election process. Blacks were mostly all Republicans. Oh, how the pendulum swings.
November 8, 1898 a political fiasco occurred that left at least 8 Blacks slaughtered. Democrats had attempted to stop Republican election officials from taking the affidavits of Blacks denied the right to vote.
There was great friction between Democrats and Republicans and the Black and White communities. As noted, most Blacks were Republicans and most Whites were Democrats. Blacks outnumbered Whites in Greenwood, but few voted since Democrats regained power after the 1876 elections.
Many Blacks were in power during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. They acted with fairness, however there was strong resentment from Whites who had owned Blacks before the war.
Thomas Tolbert, a White man, and the brother of Robert “Red” Tolbert who was running as a Republican congressional candidate was collecting affidavits from Blacks who had been prevented from casting ballots outside of Watson and Lakes General Store.
He was approached by a group of Democrats who ordered Tolbert to leave. He refused. The Whites knocked the box of affidavits over and began to beat Tolbert.
The leader of the Democrats was J I “Bose” Ethridge, a local party boss. After being attacked Tolbert hit Ethridge over the head with a wagon axle and in the melee, Ethridge was shot and killed.
The Whites opened fire and Tolbert was shot in the neck, arms, and side, but survived.
Between 600 and 1,000 Whites gathered in Phoenix and burned the Tolberts’ homes. They forced the Black Republicans into exile. 4 Blacks were Lynched and over several days the death toll of Blacks was at least 8, but no one has an accurate accounting of the actual number.
No one has ever been charged with any of the murders.
The Phoenix Riot is just one example of the violence that Blacks faced in South Carolina. Any effort to fight the system of White Supremacy was met with violence.
The Tolberts continued to fight for Black political rights and their homes were frequent targets of arsonists.
“Pitchfork Benjamin Tillman played a large role I the Phoenix Riots. Tillman was born August 11, 1847 and served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894 and United States Senator from 1895 to 1918 when he died. Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina’s violent 1876 election. On the floor of the United States Senate, he defended Lynchings and frequently ridiculed Blacks in his speeches on the Senate floor.
Tillman boasted of helping kill Blacks during the 1876 campaign.
Tillman took control of the Democratic party in 1890 and was elected governor. During his 4 years in office 18 Blacks were Lynched in South Carolina. Tillman spoke in support of Lynch mobs alleging his own willingness to lead one.
Tillman was one of the founders of Clemson University, an Agriculture college and has been honored with a building honoring him. Tillman Hall has been the subject of debate because of his racist past; however, the Trustees are hampered in changing the name by the Heritage Act that requires a vote of 2/3 of the State Legislature.
As with other Memoria and statues honoring racists, this forces recognition of a painful past to so many of our citizens.
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Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (The Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies)
Through the life of Benjamin Ryan Tillman (1847-1918), South Carolina’s self-styled agrarian rebel, this book traces the history of white male supremacy and its discontents from the era of plantation slavery to the age of Jim Crow.
As an anti-Reconstruction guerrilla, Democratic activist, South Carolina governor, and U.S. senator, Tillman offered a vision of reform that was proudly white supremacist. In the name of white male militance, productivity, and solidarity, he justified lynching and disfranchised most of his state’s black voters. His arguments and accomplishments rested on the premise that only productive and virtuous white men should govern and that federal power could never be trusted. Over the course of his career, Tillman faced down opponents ranging from agrarian radicals to aristocratic conservatives, from woman suffragists to black Republicans. His vision and his voice shaped the understandings of millions and helped create the violent, repressive world of the Jim Crow South.
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Pitchfork Ben Tillman: South Carolinian (Southern Classics)
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Benjamin Ryan Tillman (1847–1918) accomplished a political revolution in South Carolina when he defeated Governor Wade Hampton and the old guard Bourbons who had run the state since the end of Reconstruction. Tillman and his movement aimed to expand the political control of the state to lower- and middle-class whites at the expense of African Americans and the state’s former leaders.
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