James M. Redwine

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A View of Killers of the Flower Moon

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Peg and I saw the movie Killers of the Flower Moon Friday, October 20th. It exposes the numerous murders of Osage Native Americans one hundred years ago. The film rightly concentrates on the sins of the Killers and the victimization of the oil-wealthy Osages. I appreciate the light cast upon the deaths of the betrayed victims but, as one who was born and reared on the Osage Nation, I hope viewers realize the tribe were and are much more than victims.

As I watched director Martin Scorsese’s 280-million-dollar epic and paean to the Osage victims I thought of the Osage friends I grew up with in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s and to the Osages I live among today. On my desk is John Joseph Mathews’ book The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters and Charles H. Red Corn’s A Pipe for February. Mathews personally signed his book for my mother. Maria and Marjorie Tallchief were Osage prima ballerinas of world-wide fame. Osage artists and sculptors such as John Free are numerous and talented. For example, among Charles Red Corn’s relatives are well known painter Jim Red Corn and writer for the award-winning TV series Reservation Dogs, Ryan Red Corn.

The Osage Nation has always been patriotic and has contributed many military services people to our country, such as WWII General Clarence Leonard Tinker and my personal childhood friends, Ralph Joseph (Bud) Malone and his twin brothers Jerry and Gary. All three Malones were Osages who served in Viet Nam. Gary gave his life for his country, The United States of America, in 1966. Bud, Jerry, Gary and I played baseball and football together throughout our childhood. Bud was a fine infielder and running back. Another Osage friend of mine was Freddy Spotted Bear who pitched on our American Legion baseball team that was coached by my oldest brother, C.E. Redwine. I was Freddy’s catcher. My other brother, Attorney at Law Philip W. Redwine, for many years collaborated on legal projects involving Native American rights with Osage attorney Browning Pipestem who was called the Legal Warrior. Bud Malone’s daughter is also a practicing attorney.

I played with, went to school with and occasionally fought with numerous Osage friends. Today our family physician is Osage Matthew Cameron Rumsey. Dr. Rumsey’s uncle, Clinton Rumsey, and his grandfather, Mongrain (Mogri) Lookout, and I played football together at Pawhuska, Oklahoma High School. Mogri also helped develop the lexicon for the Osage language that was spoken by the actors in Killers. My and my sister’s and brothers’ long-time Sunday School teacher at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Pawhuska was proud Osage Violet Willis

 In other words, the movie is an important and relevant exposé of a great tragedy, The Reign of Terror, but I would not want the audience to be unaware of the many and varied positive contributions members of the Osage tribe have made to our society; they are legion. Osages, just as non-Osages, include competent, complex, heroic, flawed, interesting, valuable, talented and justifiably proud working members of the great tribe that is America. The Reign of Terror certainly must be acknowledged for the evil it was and I am grateful the movie does so and does it so well. However, the Osages as a culture, a tribe and full-blood citizens of The United States of America should be also recognized as triumphing over that great stain on our collective history.

Photo by Peg Redwine

 

A Dark Pall Lifted

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This past Saturday, October 21, 2023 Posey County, Indiana held a vigil to honor the memories of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr. John Harrison, Jim Good, William Chambers, Jeff Hopkins and Edward Warner, all Black men who were murdered the week of October 12, 1878. The vigil began at 10:00 am Saturday morning at the Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon and concluded at the courthouse square that evening. The commemoration was organized by Mt. Vernon teenager Sophie Kloppenburg and, much as the lynchings themselves, was a public event.

The underlying circumstances leading to the lynchings were set out on the front page of the October/November 1878 editions of Mt. Vernon’s Western Star newspaper. Owner and editor John Leffel was an eyewitness to the murders. The following account of the matter comes from editor Leffel and was first published in Gavel Gamut November 07, 2005:

“When ‘three white women living in a quiet and lonely part of Mt. Vernon’ claimed they had been raped by several African-American men on Monday, October 7, 1878, a Posey County Grand Jury quickly returned indictments against Daniel Harrison, Jr., John Harrison, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, William Chambers, and Edward Hill.

On Tuesday, October 8, 1878, three white vigilantes took Daniel Harrison, Jr., from his father’s home and lynched him or threw him into the furnace of a railroad steam engine. On October 9, 1878, these same men returned to the Harrison home looking for John Harrison.  They put a revolver to Daniel Harrison, Sr.’s, head and threatened to kill him.  The men did not find John Harrison at the Harrison home, but did later dispose of him by putting his body into a hollow tree just east of Mt. Vernon.

 Four white lawmen went to the Harrison home at 2:00 o’clock a.m., on Thursday, October 10, 1878, to arrest Edward Hill, who was rumored to be hiding at the Harrison home.  At the time the lawmen arrived, Daniel Harrison, Sr., was home in bed, fully dressed and sleeping with a loaded shotgun due to the earlier instances at his home. During a melee at the home, Deputy Sheriff Cyrus O. Thomas was shot and killed, and Harrison, Sr., was charged with the shooting.   Harrison, Sr., who had been shot during the melee, turned himself in that same October 10th morning.  He was lodged in the Posey County Jail which was then located on the campus of our present courthouse. 

Also, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Good, Edward Warner, and William Chambers had been taken into custody and were incarcerated with Daniel Harrison, Sr., in the Posey County Jail.

On the front page of Posey County’s Western Star newspaper edition of October 10, 1878, editors, John C. Leffel and S.D. McReynolds, stated: 

“‘Jeff Hopkins, Jim Good,­ … and … other Negroes…forced an entrance into a house of ill-fame on First Street, Monday night, and raped the inmates there.  …Jim Good is not as good as his name, this being the second time he has been guilty of this crime.  …The girls raped were all white.  A little hanging would do Jim Good a great deal of good.’”  

Editor Leffel attended the jail break-in and the summary executions that took place two days after his article appeared.  Much of the information in this article came from his accounts. 

In the early morning hours of October 12, 1878, a mob broke into the jail, cut Daniel Harrison, Sr., into pieces and threw his body into the jail’s privy.  Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, and William Chambers were dragged out of the jail and hanged from the locust trees ringing the courthouse.  The four bodies were left hanging on the square until after the funeral of Cyrus O. Thomas, which took place the afternoon of October 12, 1878.

It was not unusual, especially in the south, for Negro lynch victims to be left hanging for an extended period of time as a “warning” to others who may have, also, “deserved hanging” but who had not been caught.

….

“By leaving the young men hanging on our public square all day, it would have been practically impossible for our law enforcement and judicial communities to be unaware of the lynchings.

However, even though the Posey County Prosecuting Attorney, the Judge and, in fact, most of Southern Indiana knew the men indicted for the rapes of the women and the murder of Officer Thomas had been killed in 1878, the legal system kept up a charade that the cases were going to be tried.  Every term of court from 1878 to 1881, the cases were called, then “set over to the next term.” 

During these three years, no action was taken against the people involved in the deaths of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr., John Harrison, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, and William Chambers.  In 1881, the Prosecutor, without fanfare, dismissed the indictments against the dead rape defendants.   I have not been able to determine the ultimate fate of Edward Hill [he may have escaped to Indian Territory]. 

This was not our legal system’s finest hour.  Of course, injustice is not the sole province of days gone by.  Today, “lynchings” are usually more procedural than literal and can involve letting the guilty go free as well as convicting the innocent.  Or they may involve imposing Draconian or effete punishment instead of justice.” 

As for now, the month of October has almost come and gone again and the spectres that have haunted my mind since first learning of these horrific events in 1990 are less demanding due to the erection of the memorial in 2022.

 

Passion vs. Purpose

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In October 2022 Posey County, Indiana finally erected a memorial to the murders of five Black men on the courthouse campus the evening of October 12, 1878 and two more Black men earlier that week. For years numerous persons called for such a monument but it took the hard work and dedication of a Mt. Vernon, Indiana teenager, Sophie Kloppenburg, to get it erected. A one-year commemoration ceremony has been organized by Ms. Kloppenburg for 21 October 2023. The public is invited.

Of the thousands of lynchings that have occurred in America over the years most have been the result of mob violence. A group of men, it was almost always white men fueled by prejudice and often alcohol, would rather spontaneously agree to “exact revenge” or “solve a problem” or some other ill-conceived motivation and proceed to use Judge Lynch instead of asking the legal system to address the situation with due process of law.

However, occasionally some of a community’s citizens would organize and carefully plan the murders and a coverup. That truly frightening situation is what occurred in Posey County, Indiana the autumn of 1878. As reported in the October 17, 1878 edition of the Western Star newspaper by owner and editor John Leffel who was an eyewitness to the events:

“Your reporter and one or two others privileged to enter the jail ran out into the beautiful Court House yard, shaded with heavy locusts. The night was clear, and a bright moon pouring its light down, made the scene ghostlike and impressive.

The crowd, consisting of two or three hundred, fell back across the street. For ten minutes it appeared to be a false alarm. But then was heard the steady tramp of two hundred feet, and a few minutes later fifty men entered the east gate and fifty men entered the north gate. The miserable guilty wretches on the inside began to pray and call on God to save them. But the one hundred men, the best of the county physically and probably in reputation, marched into the yard in files of two. Every man had on a long black mask, falling from forehead to chin, like the inquisition of old. All had changed their coats, some were turned inside out. Not a word was spoken until the leader demanded the keys to the jail.”

After the murders, Posey Circuit Court Judge William F. Parrett, Jr. convened a Grand Jury that returned a verdict that the seven Black men had been murdered by “a person or persons unknown.” Such a denial of justice defied credibility but was given lip service and silence by Posey County’s entire legal system as well as much of the populace.

While the actions of a disorganized mob would have certainly been awful, the well planned and disciplined murders and cover up bring to mind the terrifying evils of governmental power corrupted. When editor Leffel printed that JUDGE LYNCH had held court, the irony remains poignant. To judge in a court of law is everything a lynching is not. It is an oxymoron that the events of October 1878 and judging were juxtaposed.

 However, thanks to the memorial marker that now stands where the locust trees upon which four of the seven murdered Black men were lynched, at least the great injustice is now publicly recognized.

Respite and Nepenthe

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven holds out little hope for relief from the memories of the lost Lenore. Poe seeks respite in the mythical ancient Greek beverage, nepenthe, that causes forgetfulness. In those Dog Days of summer where August made the fires of hell sound inviting, respite and nepenthe finally arrived in September on the wings of the forward pass. Gentle Reader, allow me to quote my favorite author on our salvation from the hades of 100℉ temperatures:

“The crisp autumn air. The dry brown grass. Sweaty pads and the exhilaration of combat without weapons.
The kind of battle where one can experience the thrill of having been shot at and missed without even being shot at.
Football! Ersatz war. Clashes of pride, power and cunning.”

Echoes of our Ancestors: The Secret Game, p. vii
By James M. Redwine

Football has returned and the grass is going dormant. The experts may assert there is no connection but I say the frequency of mowing is inverted to my several favorite teams’ re-emergence in game day uniforms. Somehow the same weather that keeps me from doing outside chores does not hinder me from sitting in the heat for four hours watching boys and men shoving an inflated pig bladder covered with cowhide back and forth.

Perhaps it is because I no longer have to endure the two-a-day early morning and evening practices nor the inane exhortations of coaches who themselves also no longer must do so, but watching others play football sure beats working in the heat. In fact, Peg and I have already been jiggling our schedules so we can follow the Hoosiers, the Cowboys and the Sooners on Saturday. Our new season hopes are high but any disappointments can be assuaged with guacamole, chips and cold beer. Besides, even though we may have the occasional opportunity to attend a game in person, normally we will be sitting on the couch in 72-degree air conditioning while others entertain us with their sweat and blood and give us an excuse to leave the lawnmowers put away. I would not want you to think Peg and I have not had to make our own hard choices during the football season. For example, we had to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning to watch the 2023 Super Bowl when we were in the country of Georgia; it was tough.

Anyway, thank you to all those who have sacrificed their August sweating and preparing and now their autumn struggling for our relief. We truly appreciate it and will frequently raise a parting glass in your honor.

Photo by Peg Redwine

The Book Club

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Phil Ochs (1940-1976) was an American folk singer who wrote and sang about the dangers of governmental suppression of human rights. One of his favorite topics was censorship. In his song Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, his lyrics include:

“Oh there’s a dirty paper using sex to make a sale
The Supreme Court was so upset, they sent him off to jail.
Maybe we should help the fiend and take away his pain.
But we’re busy reading Playboy and the Sunday New York Times
And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.”

Ochs is addressing his lyrics to the hypocrisy of selective censorship. That, of course, is the greatest danger of suppression of ideas; certain groups seek to deny the thoughts of certain other groups and individuals while the ideals of other groups and individuals are allowed to flourish.

It may be coincidental that recent political discord in America includes powerful movements to ban thought or it may be that competing strident voices seeking to drown out conflicting thoughts are the source of the stalemate of constructive solutions to our current social miasma. As various special interest groups attempt to censor the airing of the ideals of other special interest groups such as by banning books in public schools, the education of future leaders suffers. It is reasonable to assume when these narrowly indoctrinated children become adults, they will continue the process of increasing public ignorance. And children being children and the internet being ubiquitous we should not be surprised if public school education in general is eschewed and our nation might lose sight of some of its founding principles that have helped right our ship of state for over two hundred years.

While there are numerous special interest groups that seek to have our public schools, including even our colleges and universities, deny free expression, often the banning of unwelcomed ideas comes from religious sects. In America that often includes Christian denominations that see themselves as protecting children by shielding them from the dangers of sexually aberrant thought.

I recall my own Christian upbringing when some of the first stories I was taught, even before I started my formal public schooling, were from the Bible. The realization of their nakedness by Adam and Eve and Lot’s having children with both of his daughters after his wife was turned into a pillar of salt and the adultery and homosexuality of Sodom and Gomorrah were stories related matter of factly by various teachers and preachers to me and my young friends. Then there is the ultimate Christian story I was taught untold times by Sunday School teachers and ministers about God having a child with an unsophisticated young Hebrew girl. I am fairly sure no Christian right group nor any Me Too group is calling for the Bible to be banned for depicting incest among Lot and his daughters, sodomy, the machinations of an Immaculate Conception or as the Bible says, “God’s only begotten son”. And billions of people, including me, have enjoyed the Christmas Story without a thought for Mary’s lack of input in the decision.

The point, of course, is that the evils sought to be avoided by book banning are not nearly as damaging as the suppression of free speech or the violation of First Amendment rights. Schools should not stock or teach pornographic materials. However, the Bible is great literature that should be taught along with many of the other books some groups want to ban. Public schools should not teach the faiths of particular religions as fact but should expose students to the lessons and wisdom of all great literature including the myths that have helped guide many successful civilizations. We need to teach our students how to make sound, informed judgments. The best way to do that is to expand their minds not narrow their horizons.

 

What Is The Score?

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80th birthday! Photo by Peg Redwine.

Psalms, Book IV, Chapter 90, verse 10 should be avoided by anyone who is nearing or has reached 80 years of age:

“The years of our life are threescore and ten,

Or even by reason of strength fourscore;

Yet their span is but toil and trouble;

They are soon gone, and we fly away.”

I make no comment on 80-year-old President Biden or 77-year-old Former President Trump. If both men are on the November 2024 ballot the voters can exercise their own judgment. And, should some other person lead either or both slates, the news media will make sure that their callow youth or doddering age are thoroughly exposed. And it will not matter anyway if the Bible is any guide because as the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter I, verse 9 advises:

“What has been is what will be,

And what has been done is

What will be done;

And there is nothing new under the sun.”

Now, Gentle Reader, you may be of such an age that 80 seems but a pleasant temperature, not a grave specter or condition of daily life. However, as one who has recently joined the Four Score assemblage, I respectfully refer you back to Ecclesiastes, Chapter 4 verse 13:

“Better is a poor and wise youth

Than an old and foolish king

Who will no longer take advice.”

In other words, the mere arriving at or near 80 is not much of an accomplishment. Whether our leaders are 18 or 80 is not the relevant consideration; it is wisdom that matters and wisdom is not guaranteed by age nor is exuberant recklessness always the province of youth.

But what I have unfortunately come to experience is that diet and exercise mean little to most people who reach the “three score and ten” plateau. “Magic bullets” as trumpeted on countless television commercials do not really contain any magic. Sure, it is a good idea to not be sedentary or overeat at any age. However, no matter what good habits old people engage in, the battle still goes to the strong and the race to the swift. And those two truisms are proved by the rosters of any professional sport team and the ages of university faculties. Yes, some emeritus scholars still fill chairs so colleges can raise their images, and contributions, but doddering is not a productive exercise nor hardly inspiring.

Those near or in the octogenarian grouping are old enough to remember the Viet Nam War, the Gulf War and the Iraq War; of course, an awareness of the Ukrainian tragedy is inescapable. Yet we appear to be digging in deeper in numerous military briar patches while we have great humanitarian needs at home and abroad. Those of us who lived through Viet Nam are puzzled by others who did also yet vigorously have us engaged in numerous similar new quagmires.

Perhaps the real lesson some 80-year-olds, and many less than 80, anticipate is that there really is nothing new under the sun except the aches and pains we never truly expected should it be our lot to live long enough to experience them. On the other hand, as that eternal optimist, and opportunist, Scarlett O’Hara, said in Gone With The Wind, “Tomorrow is another day”. At least we all hope so regardless of the Sturm und Drang. As Robert Frost pointed out, all we have is the struggle so we better make up our minds to enjoy it regardless. Therefore, I’ll just pull myself up and say Happy Birthday to all my fellow Leo’s, especially the Four Score ones.

 

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