A Hanging in Nacogdoches: Murder, Race, Politics, and Polemics in Texas's Oldest Town, 1870-1916 / Edition 1

by Gary B. Borders

Overview

On October 17, 1902, in Nacogdoches, Texas, a black man named James Buchanan was tried without representation, condemned, and executed for the murder of a white family—all in the course of three hours. Two white men played pivotal roles in these events: Bill Haltom, a leading local Democrat and the editor of the Nacogdoches Sentinel, who condemned lynching but defended lynch mobs, and A. J. Spradley, a Populist sheriff who, with the aid of hundreds of state militiamen, barely managed to keep the mob from burning Buchanan alive, only to escort him to the gallows following his abbreviated trial. Each man's story serves to illuminate a part of the path that led to the terrible parody of justice which lies at the heart of A Hanging in Nacogdoches.

The turn of the twentieth century was a time of dramatic change for the people of East Texas. Frightened by the Populist Party's attempts to unite poor blacks and whites in a struggle for economic justice, white Democrats defended their power base by exploiting racial tensions in a battle that ultimately resulted in the complete disenfranchisement of the black population of East Texas. In telling the story of a single lynching, Gary Borders dramatically illustrates the way politics and race combined to bring horrific violence to small southern towns like Nacogdoches.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292712997
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	03/01/2006
Series:	Clifton and Shirley Caldwell Texas Heritage Series , #9
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	239
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Gary Borders is a lifelong East Texas newspaperman who served as the publisher and editor of the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel from 1993 to 2003. He lives in Lufkin, Texas, where he is the publisher of the Lufkin Daily News.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: A Murder, a Manhunt, a Trial, and an Execution
  • Chapter One. Three Killed in Black Jack
  • Chapter Two. A City with a Long Past
  • Chapter Three. A Texas Sheriff
  • Chapter Four. A Suspect and a Possible Motive
  • Chapter Five. Nacogdoches in 1902
  • Chapter Six. A Suspect Is Caught
  • Chapter Seven. Lynchings: A Grim Fact of Life
  • Chapter Eight. Populism and Race: An Incendiary Mix
  • Chapter Nine. The Spradley-Haltom Feud
  • Chapter Ten. Buchanan Confesses in Shreveport
  • Chapter Eleven. A Desperate Journey across East Texas
  • Chapter Twelve. Preparations Made for Buchanan's Trial
  • Chapter Thirteen. Buchanan Returns for Trial
  • Chapter Fourteen. A Hanging in Nacogdoches
• Part II: Aftermath
  • Chapter Fifteen. Quick Hanging Sparks Criticism and Praise
  • Chapter Sixteen. Wettermark, Whitecapping, and a Whipping
  • Chapter Seventeen. Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Archie P. McDonald

The contribution of A Hanging in Nacogdoches is not limited to that city, East Texas, or even the state.... The purpose of the author's presentation is to show life—race relations, politics, the economy—in a typical ...Southern town at the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Borders argues, and demonstrates, that Nacogdoches was, indeed, typical for its time and place.
-- Archie P. McDonald, Regent's Professor of History, Stephen F. Austin State University