From 2019 EJI Calendar
1933: In Winston County, Mississippi 17 white men take 65-year-old Ruben Micou, a black man arrested for fighting with a prominent white man, from jail and his body is found whipped and shot to death.
From EJI Timeline
Hanging sign, “A Man was Lynched Yesterday.”
On April 2, 1933, a mob of white men broke into the Winston County, Mississippi, jail in Louisville, Mississippi to lynch a 65-year-old black man named Reuben Micou. Mr. Micou had been arrested after he was accused of getting into an altercation with a prominent local white man.
Black people carried a heavy presumption of guilt during this era, and many hundreds of African Americans across the South were lynched based on false allegations, accusations of non-serious crimes, and even for non-criminal violations of social customs and racial expectations. Such “offenses” could be something as simple as arguing with or insulting a white person or, as in this case, taking action to defend oneself when faced with the threat of violence from a white person.
After the mob abducted him from jail, Mr. Micou’s body was found in a nearby churchyard, riddled with bullets and bearing injuries suggesting that Mr. Micou had been whipped. Weeks later, seventeen white men were indicted and arrested for participating in the lynching. This was rare during the lynching era, when members of lynch mobs acted with impunity and rarely had to fear facing any consequences for their murderous actions.
Despite the initial signs of prosecution, the cases against the seventeen men were “indefinitely postponed” in July 1933, and press reports predicted that the charges would be dismissed soon after. No one was ever tried or convicted for Mr. Micou’s murder.
Reuben Micou was one of at least 11 black victims of racial terror lynching killed in Winston County, Mississippi between 1877 and 1950.
Today’s articles:
CPD Update: weekend police report
Not your usual Mississippi church burning (Trump voters didn’t do it)
Jim Hood calls for Entergy utility provider to repay $1 billion to customers
Mississippi Legislature approves only $1,500 yr raise for school teachers
