Howard Cooper (c. 1867-1885)
MSA SC 3520-13733
Lynched in Towson, Maryland, July 12, 1885
Biography:
Howard Cooper, an African American resident of Towson, Maryland, was
accused of the assault, rape and attempted murder of a sixteen-year-old white
girl, Kate Gray, on April 2, 1885. Cooper, who said he was seventeen
years old, but was reported to be about twenty or twenty-four, encountered Gray on
a county road near her house six miles from Towson. Gray claimed Cooper called to her by name, implying that he knew her. She alleged that after she ignored him, Cooper
pursued her, beat her, dragged her into the woods and assaulted her
over a three-hour period until he was frightened away by one of her dogs.
He was discovered four days later hiding in a barn near Towson and was
initially jailed at Baltimore City, and then, after June 30, at Towson.
Cooper's case was tried in the Criminal Court of
Baltimore City on May 20. The jury found Cooper guilty and
the judge sentenced him on May 21, to die by hanging. Governor
Henry Lloyd issued the death warrant for Cooper, and he was scheduled
to
be hanged on July 3. Cooper confessed to the crime, and
his
lawyers, William George Weld and A. Robinson White, reportedly believed
him to be guilty. However, Cooper had been sentenced by an
entirely white jury, a fact that his lawyers viewed as a violation of
his civil rights. They appealed to the Maryland
Court of Appeals, where they argued that the verdict should be set
aside because of the partiality of the jury. When the Court of Appeals
upheld the lower
court's ruling, Cooper's lawyers declared their intention to
appeal
to the federal courts and to take the case to the United States'
Supreme Court, to argue that Cooper's civil and
constitutional
rights had been violated based on the 14th and 15th Amendments to the
U.S.
Constitution. An African American organization called the
Progressive
Association drafted a circular letter to interested members of the
African American community asking them to contribute to Cooper's legal
expenses in pursuit of an appeal. The
Baltimore Sun
printed a copy of the letter several days later,
alarming certain members of the white community who were convinced of
Cooper's
guilt and feared that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court could mean
that
he could go unpunished on a technicality.
On the evening and early morning of July 12 and
13, about seventy-five men wearing masks over
their faces approached the jail where Cooper was being
held. The mob used a flagpole to break in the back door, then smashed the
lock
on Cooper's jail cell forcing it open. They immediately put a
rope around his neck and led him out through the back door into
the jail yard, where they hanged him from the nearest tree. Because the sheriff was able to catch
a glimpse of the faces of several of the lynchers and claimed not to
recognize them, The Maryland Journal reported that nearly all of the lynchers
had come from outside of Towson and were probably not residents of Baltimore.
The Baltimore County Union reported that the men came from the third
district, where the Gray family resided.2 After Cooper's
body was removed from the tree about ten hours later, his mother came and
claimed the body, burying her son on Bare Hill, near Falls Road.
The reaction to the lynching by members of
the African American community was anger and disappointment that the argument for the violation of Cooper’s of civil rights had been unheard in the U.S.
Supreme
Court. They condemned the lynching as part of a growing tide of
violence, and regretted that Cooper’s case was not used to bring attention to the necessity of including African American jurors to ensure
fair trials. A meeting took place on July 14, at Bethel A.M.E.
Church
in Hagerstown, attended by about fifty people. Those assembled
drafted
a resolution condemning the "growing spirit of lawlessness toward the
colored
people of the State of Maryland" and declared that "the great number of
colored men accused as criminals who have been lawlessly slain in this
State within the last few years is a stigma upon the fair name of
Maryland."3 Judge William
Shepard Bryan
of the Maryland Court of Appeals expressed little sympathy and condoned the circumvention of the courts by mob violence by reportedly saying "the summary disposition of the case would not have occurred
if the friends of the condemned man had not resorted to the extreme
measures
they took to raise funds."4
1. "Howard Cooper Lynched!" The Maryland Journal, 18 July 1885.
2. "The Lynching of Howard Cooper, The Baltimore County Union, 18 July 1885.
3. "Howard Cooper Lynched!"
4. "The Lynching of Cooper," The Baltimore Sun, 14 July 1885.
Link
to Lynching Profile Questionnaire
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