The Silent Shore

The definitive account of the lynching of twenty-three-year-old Matthew Williams in Maryland, the subsequent investigation, and the legacy of "modern-day" lynchings. On December 4, 1931, a mob of white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His gruesome murder was part of a wave of silent white terrorism in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which exposed Black laborers to white rage in response to economic anxieties. For nearly a century, the lynching of Matthew Williams has lived in the shadows of the more well-known incidents of racial terror in the deep South, haunting both the Eastern Shore and the state of Maryland as a whole. In The Silent Shore, author Charles L. Chavis Jr. draws on his discovery of previously unreleased investigative documents to meticulously reconstruct the full story of one of the last lynchings in Maryland. Bringing the painful truth of anti-Black violence to light, Chavis breaks the silence that surrounded Williams's death. Though Maryland lacked the notoriety for racial violence of Alabama or Mississippi, he writes, it nonetheless was the site of at least 40 spectacle lynchings after the abolition of slavery in 1864. Families of lynching victims rarely obtained any form of actual justice, but Williams's death would have a curious afterlife: Maryland's politically ambitious governor Albert C. Ritchie would, in an attempt to position himself as a viable challenger to FDR, become one of the first governors in the United States to investigate the lynching death of a Black person. Ritchie tasked Patsy Johnson, a member of the Pinkerton detective agency and a former prizefighter, with going undercover in Salisbury and infiltrating the mob that murdered Williams. Johnson would eventually befriend a young local who admitted to participating in the lynching and who also named several local law enforcement officers as ringleaders. Despite this, a grand jury, after hearing 124 witness statements, declined to indict the perpetrators. But this denial of justice galvanized Governor Ritchie's Interracial Commission, which would become one of the pioneering forces in the early civil rights movement in Maryland. Complicating historical narratives associated with the history of lynching in the city of Salisbury, The Silent Shore explores the immediate and lingering effect of Williams's death on the politics of racism in the United States, the Black community in Salisbury, the broader Eastern Shore, the state of Maryland, and the legacy of "modern-day lynchings."

Reproduction of the original: The Silent Shore by John Bloundelle-Burton

The Silent Shore of Memory chronicles the life of James Barnhill from his days as a young Confederate soldier through the trials of Reconstruction in his native Texas and his later career as a lawyer and judge. After being critically wounded at Gettysburg and a long recuperation in North Carolina, James Barnhill returns to Texas where he battles widespread corruption and vigilante violence during the turmoil of Reconstruction. Although he endures tragedy in his personal life, Barnhill becomes a respected lawyer who defends an African American man accused of rape and represents a titan of the Texas lumber industry in a precedent-setting confrontation with a railroad monopoly controlled by Wall Street financiers. Steeped in the history of the South, The Silent Shore of Memory explores the nuances of views on slavery and the dissolution of the Union, the complexity of race relations and race politics during the thirty years following the Civil War, and the powerful bonds of familial love and friendship.

Excerpt from The Silent Shore: A Romance They had left Cowes a fortnight ago, and had been yachting pleasantly in the Channel since, putting into Cherbourg on one occasion, into Ste. Mere Eglise on another, and Havre on a third; and now, as ill-luck would have it, it seemed as if they were doomed to be weather-bound in, of the many dreary places on the coast, the dreariest of all, Le Vocq. The first night in the inn, to which they had come up after seeing the yacht made snug and comfortable in the harbour below, and the sailors left in charge of her also provided for, passed easily enough. There was the hope of the storm abating - which was cheering - and they had cards, and some Paris newspapers to read, and above all, they were fatigued and could sleep well. But, on the next day, the storm had not abated, and they were tired of cards, the old Paris papers had been read and re-read, and later ones had not arrived, and they were refreshed with their night's rest and wanted to be off. But there was no getting off, and what was to be done? They had stood all the morning looking out of the window disconsolately, had smoked pipes and cigarettes innumerable, and had yawned a good deal, and sworn a little. "What the deuce are we to do to prevent ourselves from dying of ennui, Philip?" the one asked the other. "Jerry," the other answered solemnly, "I know no more than you do. There is nothing left to read, and soon - very soon, alas! - there will be nothing left to smoke but the caporal obtainable in the village. That, however, might poison us and end our miseries." Then the one called Philip began looking about the salon that was at their disposal, and whistling plaintively, and peering into the cupboards, of which there were two: "Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "here is another great mental treat for us - a lot of old books; and precious big ones, too! I wonder what they are?" "Pull them out and let us see. Probably only Le Monde Illustre, or Le Journal Amusant, bound up for the landlord's winter nights' delectation, after they have been thumbed by every sailor in the village." "Oh, confound the books!" About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.