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protest meetings did not indicate, however, that no internal conflicts were
developing in the broad anti-lynching front. Quite the opposite. For example, the
protest meeting at the Sharp Street Methodist Church resulted in a controversy that
revealed that tensions continued to exist between the more radical Black youth and
some of the more conservative white and Black elements in the movement. In his
column in the Afro, Clarence Mitchell, after taking somewhat cautious note of the
"sound advice" given by the two white clergy men who spoke at the meeting, took
aim at the
deluge of 'heartthrob' oratory from Mrs. Marie Bauernschmidt who told her
hearers that she was praying for them in their hour of need with hope that
they would remain level headed and do nothing rash.
Mitchell then lampooned the "assemblage" which, he wrote,
swayed to her way of thinking like a reed in a hurricane and as the last
echoes of the applause died down she departed as suddenly as she arrived,
leaving in her wake many foolish people who believed that they were getting
a lot of much-needed consolation.
Mitchell believed otherwise, for "when a man or a race is ready to right a wrong
already done, no condescending messages of consolation are welcome." No doubt
the young men (and women) of the Forum agreed wholeheartedly with him/*1
The indignation meeting at Union Baptist Church right after the lynching
also produced conflict between more conservative and more radical approaches.
During the meeting a sharp exchange took place between the ILD's Bernard Ades
and the NAACP's Rev. C.Y. Trigg. According to Clarence Mitchell, Ades attacked
Trigg as a "false leader" because Trigg "had chosen to use tact rather than bullying
during an interview with Governor Ritchie." Both Mitchell and a main editorial in
the Afro (probably written by Carl Murphy) called for the NAACP and the ILD to
unite against "the enemy at the gate" and respect each others' different ap-
proaches.^
Despite calls for reconciliation, controversy between the ILD and more
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