Sometimes when I'm doing archival research on one horrible thing, I find yet more tangential evidence of callousness and evil. This passage is from a coroner's inquest in Mena, Arkansas in 1904. A Black woman had been killed in a racially motivated attack.

The coroner wrote the following passage which was later shared as an "amusing" story for white locals. Apparently waving fried chicken over faces was a way to determine whether or not a Black person was in fact dead. ...read more