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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

Iowa State Bystander - April 29, 1904 - headline

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April - Archived Posts
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April 1, 1950: Political April Fools’ Day wishes in Pittsburgh Courier.
April 2, 1966: Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Bill Nunn Jr. on Texas Western championship basketball team.
April 3, 1954: Cleveland Call and Post reports on death of nightclub owner and numbers racket king Bennie Mason.
April 4, 1968: The front pages of black newspapers after assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
April 5, 1933: Hamilton Lodge Ball and drag performances in New York Amsterdam News.
April 6, 1972: North Carolina Mutual insurance advertisement in Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 7, 1959: Ads for Lydia Pinkham’s tablets and topics to relieve menstrual and menopausal pain in the Philadelphia Tribune.
April 8, 1939: Norfolk Journal and Guide on controversy over Louis Armstrong’s swing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
April 9, 197: Hank Aaron’s record breaking 715th home run covered in the Atlanta Daily World.
April 10, 1909: New York Women’s Business Club featured in Baltimore Afro-American.
April 11, 1936: Chicago Defender on a Howard University student bet gone wrong.
April 12, 1947: Jackie Robinson’s Major League Baseball debut covered in the black press.
April 13, 1948: Philadelphia Tribune reports on killing of World War II veteran George Serrell, who refused to sit in a Jim Crow train car.
April 14, 1979: Disco advertisements in the Cleveland Call and Post.
April 15, 1939: Account from a fugitive from a North Carolina prison in the Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Daniel Arico, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 15, 1939: Marian Anderson’s landmark performance at Lincoln Memorial reported in Chicago Defender.
April 16, 1904: Anti-profanity campaign reported in The Appeal. Guest post by Caroline Arkesteyn, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 16, 1959: Francois Andre’s male fashion show at Hollywood’s Moulin Rouge in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
April 17, 1915: Ohio Governor Frank Willis blocks exhibition of racist photoplay, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Alex Bishop, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 17, 1943: African-American women protest racial discrimination at Bechtel-McCone-Parsons airplane modification plant in Birmingham, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Lillian G. Page, MA student in history at the University of Memphis.
April 18, 1942: Eleanor Roosevelt calls for equality in speech at the Hampton Institute, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Connor Callahan, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 19, 1958: New York Amsterdam News on dangerous apartment conditions. Guest post by Mark Speltz.
April 19, 1960: Chicago Defender on racial discrimination and student organizing at Indiana University. Guest post by Samuel Carter, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 20, 1929: Chicago Defender on teen runner killed after winning race. Guest post by Trent Cork, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 21, 1953: Washington Afro-American on discrimination in the U.S. Army. Guest post by Katelyn Culver, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 22, 1950: Housing discrimination in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Austin Demers, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 23, 1960: White woman in Alabama beaten for dating black men, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Thomas Esposito, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 24, 1954: Chicago Defender on discrimination in Baltimore hotels. Guest post by Mark Fowler, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 25, 1987: Indianapolis Recorder on black student demands at Purdue University. Guest post by Derek Gilman, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 26, 1930: Indianapolis Recorder on movie theater discrimination. Guest post by Ethan Hill, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 27, 1974: Chicago Defender salutes Duke Ellington on his birthday. Guest post by Luke Johnson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1962: Police brutality reported in Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Samanvay Kasarala, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 28, 1988: Cleveland Call and Post endorses Jesse Jackson for President.
April 29, 1904: Iowa State Bystander reports on practical joke gone wrong. Guest post by Robert Kinser, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 30, 1960: Student protests in Greensboro, North Carolina reported in the Chicago Defender. Guest post by Samuel Kramer, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
April 29, 1904 Guest post by Robert Kinser, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

On April 29, 1904, the Iowa State Bystander ran a story titled “The Victim of a Fiendish Joke.” The story comes out of Hamburg, Iowa, a small town in far southwestern Iowa. It details the death of John C. Goodlow, who the story calls an “aged negro,” who was found dead in an old corn crib. Goodlow was killed in a practical joke gone wrong, perpetrated by a group of young white men. The men accused Goodlow of a made-up crime and punished him. The pretend punishment began with the men “tieing him with ropes and nailing his feet to a board.” The men then proceeded to cover him with “wood, rags, and shavings, and a kerosene rag [was] placed near his nose.” Then a bucket of water, which the men told Goodlow was coal oil, was poured on him. Just before the torch lit the supposed coal oil, Goodlow fell silent. The group of men took the wood off of Goodlow and untied him. When they realized he was dead, they quietly dumped his body in the corn crib where he was found the next day.

This article really caught my attention because it shows the attitudes of the times. For a man to be killed in such a way today would be murder. At this time it was simply a “fiendish practical joke.” This highlights the societal acceptance of violence against blacks at the time. The story says that the involved parties “maintained a discreet silence about the affair” and that the “victim was buried with a certificate from the coroner’s jury that death was due to ‘natural causes.’” Everyone just wanted to ignore the circumstances of Goodlow’s death and forget about it. The story does say that “one at least of the participants has come to regret the part he took,” but ultimately this incident became a topic for gossip, not a serious crime. Even the story refers to the incident as “fun,” stating, “The jokers realized that their fun had been carried too far.” Charges may not have been brought, however, the story made national news, being featured in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Herald, The Indianapolis Recorder, and the Hendricks’ Columbian from Columbia Falls, Montana.

This also shows that such violence was not as rare as it should have been. It is reasonable to assume that Goodlow believed that the group of white men was actually going to burn him alive. This fear and anxiety likely led him to his death. If such violence were rare, Goodlow may have caught on to the terrible joke and would have known the men were not trying to kill him. In reality, this “punishment” was not unheard of so Goodlow fell victim to this horrifying violence. I simply cannot understand how this could be considered a good joke, even if it had not had the tragic outcome.