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and the murder of Armwood was also made by other forces in the Black community
and even by a group of eminent African Americans from three cities led by Howard
University officials who appealed to Ritchie to pardon Lee. But the last minute
efforts were to no avail, and Euel Lee, protesting his innocence to the end, was
hanged in Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore right after midnight on October
2S.64
The A fro-American % in an eloquent editorial that deserves to be quoted at
length, attempted to put Euel Lee's execution into perspective for the re-emerging
Black freedom movement:
Euel Lee was a mirror which the director of our destiny held up to
reflect the corruption in our legal practices which denied justice to a large
portion of the citizenry because of the color of their skin,
Euel Lee was a beacon along the shores of progress which has given a
warning to both races that there is danger ahead which will result in even
more serious consequences if our judiciary is not put on the right course — a
course that will insure fairness to all, regardless of race, color, or creed.
Euel Lee was a wedge which pried open the bolted door of our jury
system and forced the administrators of the law to recognize the
constitutional rights of the Negro by permitting him to sit on juries of the
land.
Euel Lee was the torch that set ablaze the embers of racial hatred
which expressed themselves in lynch violence so that the whole world could
see that true character of communities which had been deterring the
progress of our group in more subtle and less vicious but nevertheless
effective ways since Emancipation.
Euel Lee was the clarion which called a sleeping race, blissfully
dozing in complacent trust of the good intentions of our fairer-skinned
brethren, to awake from their political lethargy and arm themselves with the
ballot which will insure their protect from the exploitation of hypocrites.
Euel Lee was the line upon which Maryland was forced to hang its
dirty linens of injustice, mockery, prejudice, and discrimination so the whole
world can see.
Euel Lee was a dynamo which set in motion the wheels of progress
which will eradicate these objectionable and indefensible practices and
make it possible for the machinery of the law to grind out the same kind of
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