Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 16 March 1995 — Page 21

The Muncie Times, Thursday, 16 March 1995, Page 21

Local Black History, Part 4

ion behind automobiles, the mob hanged their bodies from trees outside the courthouse. Rev. J.E. Johnson, who operated an undertaking establishment in the 1400-block of Highland Avenue, felt that these young men should have a decent Christian burial and, accordingly, drove to Marion to get the bodies. The tension fairly crackled in Muncie because of the lunching itself. While Rev. Johnson was on the road rumors spread throughout the colored community that gangs of whites were gathering to seize the bodies from Johnson’s mortuary and burn them. Delaware County Sheriff Fred Puckett met the undertaker on the way back and escorted the hearse containing the two bodies to the mortuary. Meanwhile, scores of blacks armed themselves and gathered, using Shaffer Chapel A.M.E. Church as headquarters. They came from all over the city. Some even drove up from Indianapolis. They told Sheriff Puckett that they would resist any white mob. Sheriff, in turn, helped them arm and promised to support their efforts. In the words of one man who was there: “I never will forget Trooper Taylor, he was our leader; he was spacing us up and down highland Avenue, and anybody who came by, especially any white group in a car, would be stopped and questioned. We thought sure somebody was going to get trigger happy and shoot somebody, but nobody came to get the bodies. When we got ready to take the bodies back to Marion for the funeral. Sheriff Puckett led our del-

egation to the edge of Delaware County, until we were out of his jurisdiction. ... I believe we really had the white people scared that time. The prosecutor at the time came out and tried to talk to us and told us we didn’t have a chance to keep a mob from getting those bodies away from the mortuary, and that somebody was going to hell. ‘That’s about the closest thing that happened, but I could hear the whites at Indiana Foundry, where I worked, saying ‘Those colored people are really getting ugly and mean. But we let them know we weren’t fooling and just a little bit of guff could have set off a big riot. I’m glad it didn’t happen because we even had our wives out there hid behind houses and things.” This incident served on the local level to assist a political shift that became noticeable in the 1930s. many of Muncie’s blacks whose parents and grandparents had always voted for the party of Abraham Lincoln, switched their political allegiance to the Democratic Party. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal programs were major factors in this shift; yet

some blacks recall that Sheriff Puckett’s courageous stand on their behalf prompted them to cast the first Democratic ballots (Puckett was a Democrat) of their lives. Still, neither party could claim total black support, for several prominent Negroes maintained their Republican ties In 1934 Dr. A. Wayne Brooks entered the Republican primary for City Council; although he was unsuccessful, he secured the highest number of votes among the defeated candidates. Four years later he tried again, and was again unsuccessful. Mr. Thomas Phillips, gifted with a magnificent, booming voice, was a much sought after speaker for the Republican Party during the 1920s and 1930s. The Indiana Herald, a Negro newspaper which appeared briefly in Muncie during the 1930s, made this observation about politics in its April 23, 1938, issue: “Another stumbling block to the progress of the colored race is we have not learned how to agree, if we had disagreed. For an example, if we disagreed over politics during an election as we have in the past and when it was over we con-

tinue to disagree with malice and hatred. “Now folks, facts are not reflections; you know our disagreement hinders our work in church, in the state, and elsewhere. You must agree with me on this fact. Then let us agree to learn how to differ on one point and agree on another point and still be friends. We fight and make enemies among ourselves over the white man’s election to office, and after it’s over, the white victor receives congratulations from his defeated opponent and then they join hands and hearts and go out and make a million dollars. What happens to our hating brethren? One of them gets a job in the alley and the other gets a job on the dump and they continue to hate each other until the white man calls another election. Now friends the day has passed for this stupidity.” Rev. Benejamin F. Adams edited the Indiana Herald, assisted by Tommy Sheton, Mrs. Jane Taylor, and Georgia Goens. Rev. Adams also was the pastor of Shaffer Chapel A.M.E. Church. In 1936 he had run afoul of Indiana’s “blue sky” law, for selling unreg-

istered stock in his newspaper to a local widow, and in the course of this litigation it was revealed that the publication had started during the political campaigns of 1934 in an effort to rally blacks to the Republican Party. Rev. Adams had received several contributions from City Hall’s 2 percent club. Incidentally, no black was elected to city office in Muncie, until Mr. Ray Armstrong was elected to City Council on the Republican ticket in 1952. The Rev. J.E. Johnson, who had embalmed the victims of Marion’s lunching, made a lasting impression on Muncie’s colored community. He came here shortly after World War I with little more than a suitcase, did some preaching, and decided to stay. In addition to preaching, he opened an undertaking establishment on the north side of the Burnham home at Lowell and Wolfe streets; from there he moved to a large brick building in McCulloch Park, and then to 1414 Highland Ave., where the mortuary remained for many years. Rev. Johnson was reputed to possess an Egyp(See LOCAL on page 22)