The movie Vendetta was based on this incident. 
Posted on 07/13/2005 10:55:32 AM PDT by Between the Lines
ABBEVILLE - In a rare, emotional and historic church service that left many weeping and others transported with joy, South Carolina whites Tuesday openly confessed the sins of lynching and slavery.
And blacks forgave.
The congregation - 300 blacks and whites - clapped and swayed and hugged and sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in rock anthem fashion, with drums and guitars, as they recalled the Abbeville lynching 89 years ago of Anthony Crawford, a prosperous black farmer who dared sass a white man.
"We're here tonight because the whole story must be told and confessed," said Johnson Dorn, 45, the youngest son of longtime U.S. Rep. Bryan Dorn, D-S.C., now 89 and retired.
Johnson Dorn, a white whose family has been in South Carolina nine generations, told how his great-grandfather had fought in the Civil War, then came home and joined the Red Shirts, whose actions, he said, helped paved the way for lynching in South Carolina.
Dorn told the group that when he was in college at Furman, a classmate told him the Dorn family had been involved in the killing of a black man in Edgefield County.
"I went home and I asked my father if that were true, and he hung his head and didn't answer," said Dorn, who then shouted, "I need to be here!"
All S.C. whites, whether they participated in lynchings or not, bear responsibility for the prejudices of the past, Dorn said. "Tonight I need deliverance from that history!"
Rev. Byron Jones, the white pastor of Refiner's Fire Christian Assembly in Greenwood, then formally asked forgiveness from the blacks.
"This statement should have been given by our forefathers in the faith," Jones said. "As their spiritual descendants, we assume that responsibility tonight."
Following Dorn, the Rev. Tony Foster forgave all whites on behalf of blacks, citing the story of Joseph who forgave his brothers, who sold him into slavery.
Quoting Jesus on the cross, Foster cried, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!"
As the crowd began to hug each other and weep in cadence to his calls, Foster hugged white pastor Wendell Rhodes, then told the congregation how blacks extended forgiveness to whites "for the slavery that was put upon us ... we forgive today all the lynchings that took place ... We forgive, too, all the churches that were burned ... and all the mobs that raped our women ... "
It was one of the most unusual church services ever held in South Carolina, with preachers and politicians speaking openly about subjects that usually are discussed in classrooms.
"I want to personally express regret for what happened 89 years ago to Mr. Anthony Crawford," Abbeville Mayor Harold McNeil told the congregation. It was apparently the first statement of apology ever made to blacks by any mayor of the towns where blacks were lynched during the 19th and 20th century.
The service was put together by Rhodes, 61, pastor of Friendship Worship and Revival Center, a church on a hill about one mile outside Abbeville.
"I just thank God we have a pastor in our community that is bold enough to stand up and declare to the world that wrong was done," said Calhoun Falls Mayor Johnnie Waller, who is black.
Rhodes, an Anderson native and Furman graduate, said he was inspired by the U.S. Senate's public apology last month for its failure to pass anti-lynching laws during the 20th century, when blacks were lynched in Southern states like South Carolina.
A RAMPAGE
One of the worst lynchings took place in Abbeville, when hundreds of whites in October, 1916, went on a rampage and publicly murdered Crawford.
On hand Tuesday night were relatives of Crawford, who said that for 89 years, area whites had expressed no regret about the lynching.
After the service, Phil Crawford, 52, a great-grandson of Crawford, was asked if it had helped him forgive.
"You want the truth?" he asked . "I ... forgave already. You can't go forward with malice in your heart."
Another Crawford direct descendant, Eugene Crawford, a grandson who lives in Philadelphia, said: "I feel better. I feel like I could fly now."
His memories of Abbeville were not always happy, he said. "As a young man, I was spit upon."
'A VIOLENT DECADE'
Crawford's lynching was one of South Carolina's most public and brutal murders, taking place during what writer Susan Garris called "a violent decade." From 1915 to 1925, she writes, there were 15 lynchings, two probable lynchings and 13 attempted lynchings in the state.
In the Abbeville lynching, hundreds of whites rampaged through town, beating Crawford and eventually stringing him up to a pine tree in the fairgrounds. There, an impromptu firing squad of about 60 whites fired hundreds of bullets into him.
"Death ... was made doubly sure, the mob hanging him to a tree and then riddling his body with bullets," The State newspaper reported on the front page on Oct. 22, 1916.
Crawford's first perceived offense was talking back to a white man. When he was being beaten for that, Crawford hit a white man with a sledge hammer, further inflaming the mob.
Crawford was one of the state's most prosperous black citizens. He owned 400 acres of prime cotton land, had 16 children and was a leader in a local AME church.
His lynching played out over several hours around Abbeville's historic town center which, with its tall oaks, old courthouse, opera house and Confederate monument, is one of the most beautiful small town squares in the state.
Several days after the lynching, several hundred whites meeting in the courthouse "voted unanimously" to force the entire Crawford family to leave the state within three weeks, according to the Oct. 25, 1916, Abbeville Press and Banner. After the meeting, some 100 whites went to every black business in town.
"The Negroes were told by the mob to keep their shops closed indefinitely," the newspaper reported.
Eventually, thousands of blacks left Abbeville County. By 1920, there were 7,018 fewer blacks in the county than there were in 1910, according to census figures. Today, about 30 percent of the county's 26,000 residents are black.
RECONCILIATION
Some whites spoke out against lynching.
While Cole Blease, governor from 1911-'15, publicly urged the lynching of blacks suspected of violent crimes, his successor, Richard Manning, sent a detective to Abbeville to gather facts about Crawford's death. Manning also made public statements urging the sheriff and other local officials to act against Crawford's killers.
But a grand jury refused to indict whites implicated in Crawford's murder.
Rhodes said he hoped the ceremony would help the town move beyond any bad feelings that linger.
"I have always felt there needs to be some reconciliation between the races here," said Rhodes. Although those connected with the lynching are dead and race relations are better, reconciliation is still necessary, he said.
"The scriptures say, 'I will visit the sins unto the third and fourth generation. If you don't deal with these issues, they will deal with you."
There ain't been no lynchings since I moved here!
...blacks extended forgiveness to whites "for the slavery that was put upon us ... we forgive today all the lynchings that took place ... We forgive, too, all the churches that were burned ... and all the mobs that raped our women ..."
I guess than means I am off the hook now. Whew!.. no reparations.
LOL Speak for yourself. This "group guilt" crap is ridiculous, but as we see here, people love these "Oprah moments" that make them have an emotional event.
If the descendants of lynched blacks bring a lawsuit for reparations, I have a feeling Mr. Dorn will be one of the first to say he's not personally responsible for the sins of his predecessors.
Silliness.
I especially enjoyed the "pastor" quoting Christ "Forgive them father for they know not what they do", when the past accounts of crimes were recounted.
#1. You are not Christ.
#2. You should have used PAST tense, not PRESENT. Which means to me that the "pastor" actually believed the white people in the crowd were GUILTY of the sins of men long dead.
Absolute psycobabble, feel-good, blame whitey POOPOO.
Did the black present apologize for selling their brothers to the slave traders???
People who were not harmed forgave people who did not do anything.
Nice...
Two questions:
Had very many of those present participated in the Crawford lynching?
Or any lynchings?
The odds of this little factoid getting out is, well, ZERO...
Takes a lot of Chutzpa these days to be a democrat Black or Jew..
What democrats lack in sense is made up for in Chutzpa..
I think this guy is chronologically confused. I could understand how someone in the past could be held responsible for something today but it doesn't work the other way. Another observation: He is conveying guilt on certain people based exclusively on their race. That is racism, pure and simple.
The movie Vendetta was based on this incident.
Good, now perhaps we can both focus on our common Arab enemy, and bring back limited racial profiling for people of Middle Eastern descent.
Wow, that's pretty cool stuff. Did anyone film this? would love to see it.
2) My favorite was one I heard a few years back...some politician or radio personality said: "I will give you $1000 reparations for every slave I have ever owned, and will give you $1000 for every minute you have spent in slavery." LOL!
Personally, I'm not particularly fond of those "touchy-feely" false confessions meant to evoke momentary emotional responses.
I was also wondering now that we have been forgiven - will the NAACP call off their boycott of South Carolina?
If it doesn't cost anything, I say apologize. What the hell.
Sorry about the lynching. Here's a casserole.
This story is especially interesting to me since my great-great-great-great-great grandfather settled in the Abbeville District in 1760, moving there directly from Ireland. He had 12 children and some of his descendants are still there. I went there last fall to see the place and walked around the town square, eating ice cream. Very beautiful and peaceful place, I thought. From my understanding, the Scots-Irish did not ever own slaves, did their own work, along with their families.
If you are interested in Scots-Irish American history check out a book called "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America". It is a great book.
I have heard about this book and do intend to buy it. I have a sister who moved to SC 30 years ago and I did the geneology research that proves her ancestors were there before SC became a State and sent it in to get her a "Founding Families of South Carolina" certificate signed by the governor. That was fun.
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