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80 years later: Remembrance and reconciliation of Cleo Wright lynching slated for Sunday
SIKESTON — Eighty years after a Black man accused of assaulting a White woman was dragged through the streets of Sikeston by a vehicle and set on fire, the community will for the first time acknowledge the tragic incident with a remembrance and reconciliation event on Sunday.
“Sikeston has not really identified the fact it happened,” Sikeston native Harry Howard said of the Jan. 25, 1942, lynching of Cleo Wright. “It’s like if we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.”
Howard was born in 1945 and said he was in high school before he knew the lynching happened in Sikeston.
“I didn’t have a clue,” Howard said. “It was so hushed. …It’s something that needs to be etched into the minds of community. Cleo Wright was drug out of jail and not given a fair trial.”
A memorial service of remembrance and reconciliation in recognition of the 80th anniversary of the tragic incident will be from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 23 at Freewill Baptist Church, located Center and Scott streets, in Sikeston. The event is sponsored by West End Empowerment Community Betterment Association and the Sikeston chapter of the NAACP.
Howard, who is also the president of the West End Empowerment, noted the Kaiser Foundation, which is creating a documentary on the history of the lynching of Wright that will be released nationwide, will also have film crew present at Sunday’s event.
“A lot of people who were there are still living,” Howard said.
On early Jan. 25, 1942, Wright was arrested on charges of allegedly assaulting a White woman. Wright was shot several times by a city night marshal during his arrest, but the hospital refused to admit him for treatment due to his race. Police initially brought the ailing Wright to his home to die but later returned him to the city jail, where a mob of White men formed at the jail and soon overcame city and state police officers.
The mob abducted the nearly unconscious Wright from his cell and then dragged him through the streets of Sunset where the mob forced Wright’s wife to identify his body. They then burned the corpse in front of two Black churches in the presence of hundreds of churchgoers on this Sunday morning.
Like many lynchings, this killing was a message to the entire Black community that no dissent would be tolerated.
“The community was traumatized,” Howard said. “Blacks were told to be out of town by sunset, and many left Sikeston.”
Many Blacks were terrified.
“To hear the sounds of people yelling the N-word and seeing the mob with bats and crowbars, the Blacks were traumatized. To see your friend burned alive and dragged from a station wagon through the streets was traumatizing for everyone,” Howard said.
While the lynching of Wright received national attention and led to the first ever Department of Justice investigation of a lynching, a grand jury refused to indict the perpetrators, and no one was ever convicted.
“There’s so much to this story,” Howard said.
Howard, who will be 76 in October, said his knowledge of the incident and times were most validated by his father, the late Edgar Howard, who was Sikeston’s first Black police officer.
There were also acts of kindness, Howard noted.
“There were so many good Whites, and many Whites picked up Blacks to take them in for safety,” Howard said.
And, fortunately, Howard said, times have changed and conditions have improved over the years.
“It’s so much better – not only with housing but educational opportunities,” Howard said, adding several Black Sikeston residents are prominent physicians and educators today.
Howard said the purpose of Sunday’s service is not to recall details of the tragic incident, but to remember that it happened and to reconcile.
“We’re glad to know there’s going to be a peaceful event,” Howard said.
There will be music and special tributes on Sunday, Howard said, adding the musical selections will be about reconciliation and healing. The Freewill Church choir will also perform.
“It’s a very timed program of music and tribute, remembrance and reconciliation,” he said.
Attendees are encouraged to wear face masks, and masks will be available, Howard said.
“This is the 80th year since the lynching of Cleo Wright,” Howard said. “By mentioning that it happened and letting it be known it happened, we’ll be able to let those who want to work for a better world do so.”