Black Lives Matter?--Enid OK, 1906

I've known about this case for some years, but am just now putting it online. The victim is merely one of the countless numbers of black men killed by white police, but the date is significant, for in 1907  Oklahoma became a state and went from a system of defacto integration to Jim Crow, thereby joining the mandated racism of the rest of the solid South.

In December 1907, Henry Clayton Glover published a letter in the Chandler newspaper protesting the killing of his son Frank, then 25 years old. The letter is below. Frank's grave can be visited at this link: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44175468/frank-glover

I made this story into a poem for Juneteenth and Black Lives Matter, which appears below the letter.

Obituary: A Parent’s Version

Henry Clayton Glover, of this city, father of Frank Glover, who was shot and killed a couple of weeks ago at Enid while attempting to escape from an officer, has the following to say regarding the killing:

A colored man shot dead at Enid, Oklahoma, Dec. 4, 1907, just eight or ten steps from, and by a revolver held in the hands of a coward, their so-called officer, by the name of Charles Porter, of Enid, Okla. Frank Glover, son of H. C. Glover and Melvina Glover, residents of Chandler, Oklahoma, was born in Holly Springs, Miss., March 18, 1880, and came to his death Dec. 4, 1907, by three bullets shot by Charles Porter, for the sum of $50. This boy has always been a weak minded boy. Many false reports have been flying in the newspapers. This boy has been falsely accused of crime. Let us take the record which is the best proof. There is but one case on the record of Mississippi, Tennessee or Oklahoma to show that Frank Glover has ever been convicted of crime, except once for gaming. His life was take by the guilty coward, Porter, of Enid., Okla. for the said sum of $50 paid to him by George Sims of Missouri. There is no record of Missouri to show that Frank has ever been guilty of any crime. If the law of the lands should say kill all men that are charged with crime there would be few men and women left, and none left like the coward who stole Frank’s life. 

If you were in need of $50 and had to kill a man it ought to have been a convict and not one who had never been found guilty or convicted of a crime. Every man who may have a weak minded boy, as I had, may feel as I do. I feel that every man the violates the law ought to have a fair trial. Frank and Bessie Proxter were charged with having some stolen property that was in Springfield and were in jail awaiting the action of the grand jury, and let the jailer tell the truth and he will say as Frank says. The white man that was in jail at the time put the gun on the jailer and the white man and two colored men went out of the jail first, and Frank Glover was the last out of the jail. That shows he was a bad man as they say. Let us see what Dr. Raymond of Tennessee says: 

* * *

State of Tennessee

Shelby County

Personally appeared before me George B. Coleman, a notary public in and for said state and county, Dr. F. S. Raymond, who being first duly sworn, states that he examined Frank Glover three years ago in the county jail and found him mentally unsound at that time and so recommended to the judge of the criminal court, and he discharged him from custody, and I was of the opinion at that time that he was permanently non-compos-mentis.

Sworn and Subscribed to before him this October 12, 1907.

George B. Coleman,

Notary Public

* * *

Frank Glover, the deceased, was brought from Enid to Chandler, his home, by H. C. Glover, his father, and laid to rest in Wright’s cemetery on Dec. 8, 1907.

H. C. Glover

Chandler Publicist, 20 Dec 1907
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Frank Glover (1881-1907)

On the day I was born the good lord ran out of brains

and I didn’t get my right share--of them or a lot of things.

If you read the letter Daddy wrote for the Chandler News,

you know I had no record of wrong-done deeds.

Daddy got papers to prove it from the places we’d lived

from Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Tennessee 

but they’d a meant nothing to that coward police

Charles Porter of Enid who put three bullets in me

from eight or ten steps away--cause I tried to run.

I was black and he was white, like he was day

and I was night, leaving me wrong like he was right.

“A weak minded boy”--Daddy says that three times. 

He meant that he didn’t love me any the less for that.

He spoke for “every man who may have a weak minded boy” and may feel as he did. 

He believed every man who broke the law ought to get a fair trial. 

I been dead over a century now, and time has settled the silt

that muddled my mind like a puddle that clears when the rain stops.

My soul’s dressed in white now, not stained shreds and tatters.

I see clearly now a whole lot of things but the thought

of the way my life was cut off rankles and remains.