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Do you recall when you heard about the first lynching?

Yes. I must have been about six years old. And it happened to have been in our town, and the first we heard of it, people came running from uptown as we called it, to say that there was a mob coming into the city. Of course, at that time there was only one road coming into the city from Little Rock. And so the whole neighborhood where we were knew that this mob was coming. We didn't know what they were doing, or that they had this black man, whom they had gotten out of the penitentiary at Little Rock, and they brought him into Hot Springs, and we understand they dragged him up and down the Main Street, you know, before they took him outside of the city to lynch him. We never really witnessed any of it, but it was a very chilling thing. I'll never forget it, because people were describing it -- whether they had seen it or not, I don't know -- but there were very vivid descriptions of it. It was a very awful thing, and for days we were afraid almost to go out of our house Actually.

But the thing that saved the day, in terms of your own protective armor, was that there were many people in the town who were white who didn't like it either. And they expressed themselves.

I'll never forget that the ARKANSAS GAZETTE at that time had a very moving editorial, you know, against this whole thing. So that there was some source of encouragement, so to speak, and -- in the thought that there were many whites who were outraged.

What did you say this man was accused of?