Four panelists met on Monday Jan. 29 in Sykes Union Theater to discuss the historical facts of the Zachariah Walker lynching, which took place outside of Coatesville in 1911, as well as the recent controversy in placing a historical marker at the site of the murder and how this event still affects Chester County today. Walker fatally shot Edgar Rice, a white security guard, after an altercation and immediately fled the scene, only to be caught and shot by a posse the next day. While Walker was still in the hospital for the gunshot wound, a mob broke into the building and dragged him, chained to his bed, out past the county lines and burned him alive. He climbed out of the fire three times before he succumbed to the flames. Walker’s death, the last occurrence of a mob killing in Pennsylvania, was witnessed by a crowd of two thousand people.
Some of these people had come from church services. Although there were charges brought against some members of the men involved, no one was ever convicted.
The panel consisted of the moderator, Dr. Charles Hardy from the WCU History Department; Dr. Dennis Downey, a scholar on the lynching from Millersville University; Samuel Stretton, a local lawyer responsible in part for the historical marker; Robin Young, a paralegal also partly responsible for the historical marker; and Mayor of Coatesville, James Kennedy
This is an, “episode in a small isolated place that continues to reverberate almost 100 years later,” Downey said.
Young explained the controversy surrounding the placement of a historical marker commemorating Walker’s death. Stretton hired Young to draft a proposal for a historical marker commemorating Zachariah Walker’s death because, “the story had been bothering [him] for years.” Opposition came from many people including one of Rice’s descendants from whom they received an anonymous letter. There were also letters to the editor in the Philadelphia Inquirer from Coatesville’s white community expressing their concerns.
Due to this controversy the exact wording of the marker came under close scrutiny by the citizens of Coatesville. At a borough meeting many angry citizens expressed their feelings, some even disbelieving that the whole event happened.
Others wanted Edgar Rice’s name to be present on the plaque Young said, “I guess it caught people by surprise, they thought it was dead.”
Kennedy spoke of his personal knowledge of Walker.
“Zachariah came from the home state of my mother.” Kennedy said. “He was a hard-working, family man. who fought for his rights.”
Kennedy also recalled another incident involving a lynching in Coatsville in 1938 that he personally remembers. A black man was accused of raping a white girl and people wanted to lynch him.
“My whole family, we got our shotguns.all our shotguns were pointed at the police station,” Kennedy said.
He effectively stopped the death of this man because he knew of his innocence.
Stretton spoke of his past concerning racial controversies. He represented members of Chester County’s black community in a case that ostracized him from the county’s business community. Civil Rights leaders felt they could not get any black politicians elected and approached Stretton about this issue.
Once Stretton started looking into the case further he found statistics that showed the, “ills of racism,” all over Chester County. For instance Stretton said that until 1973 Chester County Hospitals would not allow black people into any other room other than a basement ward. During the course of the case Stretton endured verbal attacks as well as vandalism.
“My building was defaced and signs ripped down,” people yelled, “get that nigger lover out of here,” Stretton said.
The issues affecting Chester County today are symbolized by the Zachariah Walker case according to Stretton.
“If you don’t believe there is a problem, look at all the black and white clubs they don’t mix in this county,” he said.
Contemporary Issues, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Office of Social Equity, Office of Multicultural Affairs and Black Men United presented this forum.