Background
On the evening of 16 May 1918, 31-year old white plantation owner Hampton Smith, known to abuse and beat his workers, was shot and killed on the plantation by one of his black workers, 19-year old Sidney Johnson. As the owner of the Old Joyce Place, Smith's notoriety as an usually severe boss made recruiting workers difficult. Smith resolved the labor shortage through the use of convict labor; he paid Sidney Johnson's $30 fine (Johnson had been convicted of playing dice) and forced him to work on his plantation.
Johnson endured several beatings at the hands of Smith. Days before Smith's killing, Johnson had been severely beaten by Smith for refusing to work while he was sick. Smith also had a history with Hayes and Mary Turner: in one incident, Hayes was sentenced to the chain gang when he threatened Smith for beating his wife, Mary.
Read more about this topic: Mary Turner
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)