{"id":7072,"date":"2023-03-16T23:25:51","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T23:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drvk.createuky.net\/clone\/?p=7072"},"modified":"2023-11-27T20:51:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T20:51:17","slug":"george-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drvk.createuky.net\/clone\/biographies\/1891-1900\/george-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray, George"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George Ray was an African American man living in Washington County, Kentucky in 1895. Nothing else is known about his personal life. According to the Courier-Journal<\/em>, sometime prior to late April 1895 Ray was \u201c…taken from his home and given a sound thrashing and given orders to leave the county. He paid no attention to this and began making threats against several citizens who, he claimed, had a hand in whipping him.\u201d The Courier-Journal<\/em> did not provide details explaining why Ray was whipped and ordered to leave.  The newspaper also claimed without proof that Ray had had \u201cillicit relations\u201d with white women in the neighborhood.  Two newspapers blamed Ray for his lynching, implying that he was at fault for his generally surly behavior and \u201ccussedness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, April 25, 1895, Ray was arrested for misdemeanors. While newspaper accounts do not clearly give the charges against him, these were likely only the doings outlined above. The Courier-Journal <\/em>states that he was then \u201cput under guard\u201d (rather than in a jail) near Jensenton, Kentucky. That evening, Ray was taken by a mob of \u201cunknown\u201d men and hanged. The mob that lynched him was referred to as \u201cWhite Caps,\u201d a term synonymous with the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Courier-Journal<\/em> states that prior to his death, \u201cRay had never been convicted of any crime.\u201d This was still true when he died. Ray had had a trial scheduled for the following day, Friday, April 26. In the following week, The Owensboro Messenger<\/em>, meaning to defend the mob\u2019s actions, stated, \u201c…while it would have been better to allow the law to take its course, it is doubtful whether [Ray] would have gotten his just deserts\u2026\u201d The editorial incriminates the mob members rather than defends them, conveying the message that if Ray had been given the chance of a trial he probably would have been found not guilty.  Thus, the Courier-Journal<\/em> played a role in justifying the lynching of George Ray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four days following Ray\u2019s death, The Semi-Weekly Interior Journal<\/em> (a white newspaper in Stanford, Kentucky), commented, \u201cEvery one of the men engaged in the cowardly business is a murderer and the courts should use all their power to bring them to the same death they gave their victim.\u201d No known actions were taken against the mob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Location of the Lynching<\/h3>