Remembering Garfield King
George Shivers • October 12, 2021
Among those memorialized by the marker placed this year at the Wicomico County Court House was a young man by the name of Garfield King. He was born in 1880 in the village of Allen, 7 miles south of Salisbury, where I was born some 63 years later. I knew members of the King family growing up there.
At 18 years old, a mob dragged Garfield King from his cell in Salisbury, hanged him from a tree on the courthouse lawn, and mutilated his body. Since the 1890 Census was lost and he died before the 1900 Census, I was never able to determine anything about his parents or siblings. King’s name and his family never appeared in any federal census. He must have been born after the census taker visited his home in 1880, or more likely no census taker visited that home. It is clear that he was given the name Garfield to honor President James Garfield, who had fought for the United States in the Civil War and advocated emancipation. The president was assassinated a year after Garfield King’s birth.
When he was murdered, King was a recent graduate of the Princess Anne Colored Academy (now University of Maryland Eastern Shore). Funded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1886 for the education of African Americans, it was primarily a secondary school that offered industrial, agricultural, and practical Arts courses.
The first time I encountered the lynching came in letters given to the Allen Historical Society by Bettie Sue Payne Malone. The letters were written by Ruth Jones, who had grown up in Allen and was planning to write a history. She sent letters to several older community members asking about several events, among which was the Garfield King lynching. Her book project never panned out, but we are fortunate to have acquired the responses to her requests.
Percy Allen replied, “In looking over your list of topics, I would very definitely suggest that no mention be made of the Garfield King lynching. It was too horrible, and none of those involved were residents of Allen. Am sure you will have enough pleasant things to write about.” Another response came from Robert Huey, a resident of Chestertown at that time, who wrote the following in his 1951 letter: “Reference has been made to the lynching of Garfield King. While I read of this incident quite a number of years ago, I did not then, nor do I now, know of the details. I recall, however, going out to the little farm owned by Uncle Price (author’s note: He is referring to Levin B. “Squire” Price, local teacher, who resided across the street from the church), and following in the furrow as Garfield plowed around the field. Garfield was always good to me, and never did I see him act unkindly.” A reporter echoed his sentiments: “The lynched man was an educated Negro who graduated at the Colored Academy at Princess Anne, and has always been well thought of by his neighbors.”
The crime of which King was accused occurred on Saturday night, May 21, 1898, at a country store at Twigg’s Corner in Allen. In the springtime, local farmers were harvesting strawberries and planting their summer crops. One of those farmers, Gamaliel Banks, hired a young man from White Haven to work for him. Herman Kenney, who was 22 years old and White, was there with a group of his friends, as was Garfield King and some of his friends. An argument begun between the two groups in the store continued once they were outside. Newspaper reports indicated that King pulled a gun and shot Kenney in the abdomen at close range. Kenney died in the hospital on Tuesday evening, May 24. King argued that he had acted in self-defense, because Kenney had struck him. A number of questions arise:
- Given his character, why was Garfield King carrying a weapon?
- Why would he feel compelled to such a violent act if he did not feel threatened?
- Was there a prior history of tension between the two?
- Were the witnesses questioned by authorities, and if not, why not? Both men were with a group of friends, plus the store owner was present.
Ample evidence from newspaper reports shows that tensions were rising among local Whites. And there is no lack of evidence of White racism. This was, after all, the Jim Crow era.
Men from the surrounding countryside began to gather in Salisbury on Wednesday evening, and by 11:30, according to the Salisbury Advertiser, a mob had gathered at the courthouse and jail. Street lights near the jail had been eliminated, and it was cloudy with a light rain falling. The mob’s leader demanded that the sheriff give him the jail keys. The sheriff refused, but someone brought over a nearby telephone pole which was used to break through the jail door.
The men opened the cell using an axe to break the lock and dragged the terrified King out of the cell, down the stairs, and into the jail yard, simultaneously kicking and beating him. He was then hanged from a tree outside the courthouse. A few White citizens tried to quiet the mob and prevent the lynching, according to the newspaper. One, Mr. E. Stanley Toadvine, pleaded with the mob to return the prisoner to the custody of the sheriff.
After the lynching, when the mob had dispersed, Judge Holland arrived, having been awakened by the shooting and the shouts. He had King’s remains taken down and placed in the nearby engine house of the local fire department. His body was later interred in an unidentified Salisbury cemetery, possibly what was known as Potter’s Field near the railroad track. No mention was made of Garfield King’s family in the newspaper reports.
Contemporary reports indicated that some in the White community and, of course, virtually all in the Black community were outraged by the act of vigilantism and mob violence that deprived Garfield King of life and justice. The reporter for the Salisbury Advertiser condemned the act in no uncertain terms, writing:
“How can a citizen who has sworn his allegiance to the government to support the constitution, deliberately join in a procession to do violence to the law and to his own oath? Such an act means that we have no confidence in our civil government. Is there a lack of confidence in our government? If so, the proper method for the officers of the law to pursue to establish confidence is to prove this matter and seek out the offenders.”
Judge Holland also expressed his outrage during an interview with a reporter, though it must be noted that his concern stems not only from the crime against civil law but also from its impact on the reputation of the community: “It was a shocking, and to me, very unexpected crime. It is a burning shame that the fair fame of this community should be darkened and disgraced.”
On Tuesday evening of the week following the lynching of Garfield King, leaders of the Black community in Salisbury called a meeting at John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, condemned the lynching, and called for justice.
In her book On the Courthouse Lawn, Sherrilyn Ifill points out “there are many reasons for Whites to remain silent: fear of consequences, guilt, denial, or insistence that it was all in the past and no longer significant.” She goes on to say that Blacks, too, may resist talking about incidents of racial violence: “They may fear that such a conversation will be racially polarizing, undermining progress painstakingly made over decades….” She insists, however, that that conversation must occur.
Theologian James H. Cone presents a similar thesis in his lecture, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," delivered at Harvard Divinity School on October 19, 2006. It ended with these words: “If America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of White supremacy, with repentance and reparation, there is hope beyond the tragedy — hope for Whites, Blacks, and all humankind — hope beyond the lynching tree.”
We can be grateful that the State of Maryland and Kent County, Wicomico County, and other Maryland locations are finally seeking to make amends for past injustices.
Sources:
Salisbury Advertiser, Vol. 31, No. 40 (Saturday, May 28, 1898)
Cone, James H., “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” Posted on Trinity News, Oct. 12, 2007. http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/welcome/?article&id=917
Ifill, Sherrilyn A., On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
A native of Wicomico County, George Shivers holds a doctorate from the University of Maryland and taught in the Foreign Language Dept. of Washington College for 38 years before retiring in 2007. He is also very interested in the history and culture of the Eastern Shore, African American history in particular.
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
Congressman Andy Harris is facing a steady stream of criticism on social media following his vote against releasing the full files related to Jeffrey Epstein in July. The House of Representatives blocked the release of the files on a 211 to 210 vote. Since his vote, commenters on nearly every post from Congressman Harris’s official Facebook page have repeatedly raised the issue, questioning his decision and asking for an explanation. The comments are often similar in wording and appear across different topics, from agriculture updates to health care policy. In addition to individual commenters, local advocacy pages such as Decency for District 1 have been highlighting Harris’s vote since July 31. The page has consistently called for greater transparency, arguing that constituents deserve to know why their representative opposed making the records public. Despite the visible online pushback, no major Eastern Shore news outlet has yet reported on Harris’s vote or the public response to it. Neither local television stations nor regional newspapers have published stories on the controversy, leaving the discussion largely confined to social media platforms. The Epstein files vote has drawn national attention in recent weeks, as lawmakers in both parties have faced questions about whether more information should be released. In a town hall at Chesapeake College, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen talked about the importance of transparency and the need to release the files; he offered an amendment in the Senate to force the release. Rep. Harris, the Eastern Shore’s lone representative in Congress, has not issued a public statement addressing his position beyond his recorded vote. For now, the conversation remains one-sided. Constituents continue to press the question online, while traditional media outlets in the district have yet to engage with the story. Jan Plotczyk spent 25 years as a survey and education statistician with the federal government, at the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. She retired to Rock Hall.
Donald Trump promised he would lower costs on Day One. A lot of people believed him. (Some still do.) But instead of addressing the economic concerns that got him elected, he pushed his One Big Beautiful Bill into law. Instead of lowering the cost of energy and groceries for regular folks, his OBBB gives handouts to the rich. The Democratic National Committee has put together a website that details all the ways we lose and the rich guys win. They’re calling it the Trump Tax. Here’s what they have to say. Nationally,
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” It applies to all seizures of a person, including seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest. As interpreted by the Supreme Court in an immigration context, except at the border, the Fourth Amendment prohibits immigration enforcement officers to make detentive stops unless they are aware of “specific articulable facts that reasonably warrant suspicion” that the person detained may be illegally in the country. Reasonable suspicion cannot be based on “generalizations” that, if accepted, would cast suspicion on large segments of the law-abiding population. On June 6, 2025, federal law enforcement arrived in Los Angeles to participate in what federal officials have described as “the largest Mass Deportation Operation . . . in History.” U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents and officers were sent to join officers from the Enforcement and Removal Operations directorate of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) to carry out “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles, California. This operation involved teams of three to five agents who temporarily detained individuals in public places such as streets, sidewalks, and publicly accessible portions of businesses, and made arrests for immigration violations. On July 2, five individual plaintiffs and three membership associations sued twelve senior federal officials, who share responsibility for directing federal immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area, alleging a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Perdomo v. Noem (C. D. Cal). The complaint asserts that by an ongoing policy and/or practice, detentive stops in the Central District of California were being conducted without reasonable suspicion that the person to be stopped is within the United States in violation of U.S. immigration law. Reviewing the evidence offered by the plaintiffs in support of an injunction pending further litigation, the district court found that circumstances surrounding the stops were coercive enough that the interactions were not consensual. The district court also found that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed in showing that seizures were based only upon four enumerated factors” or a subset of them. Those factors were (1) apparent race or ethnicity; (2) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; (3) presence at a particular location; and (4) the type of work one does. The district court then concluded that in the context of the Central District of California, those four enumerated factors — even when considered together — describe only a broad profile and “do not demonstrate reasonable suspicion for any particular stop.” Moreover, the court determined that, despite there being no evidence of an “official policy” of making stops based only on the four factors and without reasonable suspicion, there was sufficient evidence to show that defendants’ agents were routinely doing so. Premised on these conclusions, on July 11, the district enjoined the defendant officials from relying solely on the factors below, alone or in combination, to form reasonable suspicion for a detentive stop: Apparent race or ethnicity; Speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; Presence at a particular location (e.g., bus stop, car wash, tow yard, day laborer pick up site, agricultural site, etc.); or The type of work one does. The administration appealed the district court’s order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which refused to intervene. Perdomo v. Noem (July 28). The three judge panel determined that “a characteristic common to both legal and illegal immigrants does little to arouse reasonable suspicion.” In the U.S. generally, apparent Hispanic or Latino race or ethnicity generally has limited probative value, because large numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the physical characteristics identified with Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Speaking Spanish and speaking English with an accent are likewise characteristics that apply to a sizable portion of individuals lawfully present in this country. As to location, the Supreme Court has made clear that an individual’s presence at a location that illegal immigrants are known to frequent does little to support reasonable suspicion when U.S. citizens and legal immigrants are also likely to be present at those locations. US v. Brignoni (1975). Like location, the type of work one does is at most “marginally relevant” to establishing reasonable suspicion, even if it is work commonly performed by immigrants without legal status. Evidence that a particular employer is employing a large number of undocumented workers does not create reasonable suspicion as to each individual employee. On August 7, the administration once more sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court. In doing so, the Solicitor General asserts that the injunction entered puts “a straitjacket on law-enforcement efforts.” Although this case arises out of ICE activities in Southern California, the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision will have obvious implications for the practices of ICE agents nationwide. John Christie was for many years a senior partner in a large Washington, D.C. law firm. He specialized in anti-trust litigation and developed a keen interest in the U.S. Supreme Court about which he lectures and writes.
Across the U.S. food supply chain, more than one in five jobs is carried out by immigrants, the equivalent of 14 million workers across the sector. But many of these foreign-born workers — regardless of legal status — are afraid that they’ll be swept up in the administration’s illegal and cruel arrest, detention, and deportation actions. So, they’ve started staying home. The long-term effects of losing a substantial portion of the workforce will send a shock through the industry: crops will not be harvested, livestock will not be processed, grocery shelves will thin out, restaurants and food trucks will close, and food will get more expensive than it already is.
Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge is threatened by federal budget and staffing cuts. We are fortunate to have this unspoiled, undeveloped public land in Kent County. More than 70,000 people visit ENNWR annually for recreation and to enjoy its natural beauty. In April, Common Sense for the Eastern Shore published an article asking for help in spreading the word about the threat to ENNWR. The need for support in the face of this threat still exists. If you’d like to know more and would like to pitch in to help, Citizens Connect is holding an informational session: Monday, August 18, 5-6:30 pm Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River, 914 Gateway Dr, Chestertown The presentation and discussion will be led by members of the Board of Directors of Friends of Eastern Neck, Bill Burton, president, and Bonnie Ford, vice president. The session will cover how drastic budget cuts to the US Fish & Wildlife Service jeopardize the health of the refuge and threaten its survival. Without adequate staff, Eastern Neck could be “shuttered," public access curtailed, and the Visitors Center closed. Invasive plants would grow unchecked, migratory waterfowl would be at risk, and hunts would end.
Mayor Randy Taylor is once again at the center of controversy after being involved in a traffic incident Monday morning, his fourth car accident in less than two years since taking office. According to Mayor Taylor’s official statemen t, the accident occurred around 8:30 a.m. on South Boulevard and involved a pedestrian using a walker. Taylor described the incident as “minor,” claiming that only the wheel of the pedestrian’s walker made contact with the rear of his city-issued vehicle. He further stated that the pedestrian refused medical treatment and that all protocols were followed. However, eyewitness accounts and photos circulating on social media paint a different picture. A bystander who witnessed the event posted that the mayor struck the pedestrian in the crosswalk and initially continued driving as if he had “hit a cone,” before returning to the scene. The witness described a delayed police response and expressed frustration that no other vehicles stopped to assist. Photos of the aftermath show a visibly shaken pedestrian, leaning on his walker, with Mayor Taylor standing nearby inspecting the damage. The images have sparked widespread outrage across the community. “This is not an isolated event,” said one resident in a viral post. “This is his fourth accident since taking office, and every time it’s brushed off as a ‘minor issue.’ How many more ‘minor issues’ will it take before there’s real accountability?” The mayor’s track record with city vehicles has drawn sharp criticism, with many Salisbury residents demanding answers about why repeated accidents have not resulted in consequences. Previous incidents have ranged from parking lot collisions to property damage, all involving city vehicles. Calls for transparency have intensified, with community members pressing for clarity on whether mandatory post-accident drug and alcohol tests were administered, as required by city policy. Mayor Taylor maintains that all procedures were followed and has promised to share a final report of the incident within 10 days. In the meantime, public confidence continues to erode, with many expressing frustration over what they see as a dangerous pattern of recklessness. “Four accidents in two years,” another commenter posted. “If a city worker had that record, they’d be gone. Why does the mayor get a free pass?” Neither the Salisbury Police Department nor Maryland State Police has issued an official report yet.
