Lynching of Irving and Herman Arthur

It happened just a year after the racial violence of 1919's Red Summer.

The family was attacked by some of the town's white population and were forced to flee to the north, mostly settling in Chicago.

This and other attacks on Black Americans encouraged civil rights groups to fight against lynchings in America.

Media outlets reported on the 100-year-old anniversary but the memorial events were scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

African Americans Irving "Ervie" Arthur (1903–1920) and his brother Herman Arthur (1892–1920), a World War I veteran, were lynched—burned alive—at the Lamar County Fairgrounds in Paris, Texas, on July 6, 1920.

The event extended and amplified regional and national flashpoints for justice.

The Arthur brothers (né Charles)—stepsons of Scott Arthur, a sharecropper tenant of the Hodges' farm—were accused of fatally shooting, on July 2, 1920, the landlord, John Henry Hodges (1859–1920) and his son, William M. Hodges (1886–1920), during a dispute.

William Hodges' death certificate indicates that he died of both a knife and gunshot wound.

The prevailing story was that the Arthurs refused Hodges' demand to work beyond noon Saturdays and full-Sundays—to pay a debt.

This account was chronicled in a letter from a Paris citizen, who requested anonymity, to James Weldon Johnson, Acting Secretary of the NAACP, who, in turn, forwarded it for publishing in newspapers that included the New York Age and Negro World. The letter explained that, (paraphrasing) against the usual custom in Paris, Hodges compelled the Arthurs to work all day Saturday, which they did for a period; and, on Sundays, they washed and ironed their clothes.

Sometime during the summer of 1920, the Arthurs refused to work past noon Saturdays and all-day Sunday.

As a result John Hodges and his son, Will, went to their home on June 29, 1920, and took their dinner off the stove and threw it into the yard, then kicked their stove and furniture into the yard.

During this time, Will Hodges held a gun on the Arthurs.

He also compelled the boys to pull off their shoes and clothes and their sisters to pull off their dresses and give them to him, claiming that they were in debt to him.

When the Arthurs attempted to move from the farm, permanently, three days later, the Hodges appeared again, this time fired a gun towards the family as they were packing a borrowed truck.

One of the Arthur sons slipped into the house, retrieved a gun, and returned fire, killing John and Will Hodges.

With a tip from "Pitt" McGrew (née James McGrew; 1875–1943), Herman and Ervie Arthur were arrested the morning of July 6, 1920, in Valliant, Oklahoma, by McCurtain County Deputy Sheriff Weaver and the City Marshall of Valliant, who brought them to Hugo, and at about noon, placed them in the Choctaw County Jail.

At about 1:45, the captors left with their prisoners for the Lamar County jail in Paris.

When they reached the Red River, about fifteen automobiles were waiting at the south bank, but no one attempted to take the prisoners.

They reached their destination at 3.

McGrew, who was African American, has been chronicled as notorious and disliked by the African American community.

Notice of Herman and Ervie Arthur's impending lynching was openly advertised, to wit: "Niggers caught. Black brutes who killed Hodges will be burned in the fair grounds. Be on hand."

Shortly after their arrival, several hundred men approached the jail with a pinch bar and the leaders battered the outer door.

The jailer and two guards, all heavily armed, were inside the jail.

After some "parlaying," the jailer proposed that if twelve of the mob came forward as a committee, he would surrender the keys.

At 7:30, July 6, 1920, twelve men took Herman and Ervie Arthur from the jail and dragged them out to North Main, to the fairgrounds.

At 8:00, the Arthur brothers were burned alive at the fairground in Paris while a mob of 3,000 watched.

According to the NAACP letter, members of the mob dragged the charred remains behind an automobile for hours through the streets of an African-American neighborhood—up West Sherman Street and down 7th Street SW, between Sherman and Washington Streets, past Will Hodges' residence—while screaming, "Here are the barbecued Niggers, all you Niggers come out and see them and take warning".

One witness remembered it as a "regular parade of seventeen cars and a truck, all filled with armed men".

According to the Dallas Morning News of July 8, 1920, Pine Bluff Street was "the general dividing line between the two sections."

Meanwhile, the three sisters—ages 14, 17, and 20—were being held at the Lamar County jail under the pretense of "protection".

While the Arthur brothers' remains were being dragged through Paris, the sisters were severely beaten ... taken to the basement, stripped of all their clothing and there, reportedly, raped by 20 white men.

After the sexual assault, they were given bacon, molasses, and a sack of flour and told to leave the building.

None of the mob members were masked, but, according to a claim by some newspapers, none could be identified due to the darkness.

As was reported by the McCurtain Gazette, July 10, 1920, Ernest Christian Steen (1892–1960), office deputy for Choctow County Sheriff Ben Fitzgerald (né Robert Benjamin Fitgerald; 1886–1967), was present when the Arthurs were burned to death.

He said that he was within 50 ft of the pyre.

He said that he would never again witness such a scene, that it was too terrible.

The next day, July 7, 1920, McCurtain County Sheriff John William DeWitt (1872–1933) of Valliant told the news media that Lamar County Sheriff William Everett "Eb" Clarkson (1875–1945) had confided in him—while in Idabel the night before searching for those who he thought were the actual killers—that he was sure that one, if not both, of the lynched Arthur brothers would have been found innocent.

Clarkson insisted that one of the lynched victims was not the murderer and that the other could not be identified.

With respect to the assaults on the three sisters, in 2018, historian Hollie A. Teague wrote, "It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which some of those twenty White men were not jailers, police officers, or sheriff deputies. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine a scenario in which those officials would not at least be aware of the prolonged assault taking place or who was participating in it. Yet, not only was the assault allowed to continue, no arrests were made [immediately] afterward. This stands in stark contrast to the reaction that followed attacks on white women or children".