The night after the hanging of Tom Turner [another oral tradition says his name was Tom McNeel] isolated, demagoguery- susceptible, rural vigilantes listened to hateful speeches about how “Negroes were evil, and similar crimes might happen at any time unless some action were taken. Of the men who remained after the hanging not one voted against the proposal” to ride the following night to ride from house warning blacks to leave the county by sunset on August 6, 1886 or be killed. The action did not go unopposed in town where more reasonable people approved of the hanging, but not the expulsion. It just didn’t seem right to hold the entire black population responsible for the murder of Sallie Stephens. The Comanche townspeople were much more tolerant toward the 40+ blacks in the county. Several worked in town and were respected members of the community, one family had an adopted four-year old African-American girl. Many of the tolerant townspeople were probably members of the Human Party, referenced in an earlier post and described as an early manifestation of the left-leaning Populist Party. Fifty-five residents held what came to be known as the “Law and Order Meeting” at the courthouse. These citizens passed a resolution that “we regard the demonstration in the town of Comanche on last night in ordering the negro population out of the county as uncalled for, wrong and lawless.” As the days passed the gulf between the townspeople and the farmers grew even wider.” Those refusing to send their employees and the four-year old girl away received several death threats until they complied. One man, Captain J.F. Manning received a warning that he would “pull on the tight end of a rope” if he didn’t stop criticizing the vigilantes, Manning was sure he knew who sent that note and pistol-whipped Tom Stewart, even though Steward swore it wasn’t him. Sheriff John Cunningham told the Law and Order Committee that since a squad of Texas Rangers was still a week out, that he could deputize 100 men to oppose the mob, but that “would be arraying neighbor against neighbor and be productive of feuds that would be handed down to the net generation.” While waiting for the Texas Rangers, there were “small skirmishes fought between the ‘law and order’ and the mob. Vigilantes posted notes to people they thought opposed them, signed ‘Comitty.'” The Rangers arrived on August 4 and stayed until September trying to piece together what happened, but nobody dared testify for fear of reprisal. The Comanche County grand jury report at the beginning of September described the county as “gripped by fear.”

Elliot Jaspin. “All ‘Difficult History’ is Local and ‘Rises with Depressing Regularity’ to this Day,” in The Austin Statesman July 9, 2006; and Billy Bob Lightfoot. “The Negro Exodus from Comanche County, Texas,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, January, 1953, Vol. 56, No. 3, pp. 407-416.