Are the cases of Herbert Johnson and Charles Bradley Smith, from a century ago, still relevant today?
The Providence Journal asked several experts on the subject to weigh in. Here’s what they said.
Why are the Johnson and Smith cases important today?
“When we think about our progress in society, it’s really important to look back on these types of cases to compare and contrast what’s happening in that case – and what is still happening today – even 100 years later,” said Megan Byrne, staff attorney with the Death Penalty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“So I think that the most important part of this story is that Charles Bradley Smith survived, but there are still challenges that we have to manage today,” said Keith Stokes, consulting historian with the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. “We may not be lynched today, but there’s still challenges.”
“We certainly don’t see lynchings anymore, the kind of mob violence that we saw in the early 1900s,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, “but some people have argued that our criminal justice system and the way that it imprisons young Black men and targets them for some of the most severe punishment has just replaced the kind of mob violence that was present at the turn of the century.”
Is there good news in the Smith case?
While Smith was nearly lynched, and then spent eight years in prison, the bottom line is that he did not die there. He got out, married and had a family.
“It’s remarkable that he was not lynched. It’s absolutely remarkable he got out of there,” said Stokes. “And the fact that he was eventually pardoned is extraordinary. I mean, all you have to do is look at similar cases anywhere else at that time in America — and compare it to the Barrington case — and these outcomes are the worst outcome: people are lynched or placed in jail for life.”
And the Smith case brought not just good news for one man and his family, said Stokes, a Black resident of Newport; it marked a watershed moment for the Black community in Newport.
“Sometimes white folks will bring credit to themselves”: ‘Oh, we’re so liberal here; we’re so caring here.’
“No, no, no,” Stokes continued. “We, we stepped in and rescued one of our own. Julius Mitchell brilliantly got him out of Newport because he knew he wouldn’t have a fair trial in Newport. And eventually they didn’t let up on it. … They waited for the next good Republican governor to come in and say, ‘Governor, you know, time to call in that chit for that vote.'”
The case is a testament to Black resilience, he said.
“We always figure out a way, be it fighting slavery or fighting urban renewal or fighting lynchings and mobs. We always find a way to survive and thrive,” said Stokes. “Charles Bradley Smith is probably one of the great examples of creative survival of a Black man in Rhode Island during that time. He survived, and then later thrived.”
Is there good news in the Johnson case?
While the Herbert Johnson story ends with him dead and buried at age 19, Byrne sees one ray of hope, albeit bittersweet: Rhode Islanders tried to save Johnson’s life.
“The community of Barrington pulling together to make that plea to FDR is very heart-wrenching,” she said.
Why was Charles Bradley Smith pardoned, but Herbert Johnson left to die?
“It’s important to keep in mind just how political requests for clemency often can be,” said Byrne.
“I think the contrast to the two issues is Charles Bradley Smith is a Newporter,” said Stokes. “And more importantly, he had the backing of a very well organized Black leadership group, where you have Black attorneys, civic, social, political leaders, all rallying and organizing themselves.”
While the call for Smith’s pardon was widespread, New York Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt heard from relatively few on Johnson’s behalf, when a group of Rhode Islanders went to Albany.
“For FDR, it seemed like this external community, that wouldn’t necessarily have the same voting power that would affect him, was asking for clemency, and it’s hard to think that that wouldn’t have an effect” said Byrne. “The political power in the cases were different in the way that one was coming from within the same state, and one was coming from outside the state.”
The Smith case teaches an enduring lesson: the community has the power to organize to fight injustice
“We, as a community, do still have voices that can be heard, and I think it’s a good lesson, because even in this situation, it’s the early 1900s and so many things are unfair and we might feel so powerless, but even then, people were able to organize and make their voices heard,” said Byrne. “We really need to take lessons from the power of the collective and that we as people can organize around things that are important to us to make change.
Is there much difference between lynching and legal execution?
Scholars have referred to capital punishment as “legal lynching.” They cite both the overlapping history of the peak of lynching with the rise of capital punishment, as well as racially uneven application of the death penalty.
“In some respects, capital punishment came to replace lynching as a way of controlling, subduing and restricting the activities of Black people,” said Maher.
“People supporting it found it’s more easy to justify, and the public found it more easy to accept,” said Byrne. “There was a really common refrain in public discourse at that time that we should support capital punishment and this idea that it would actually help reduce lynching and reduce the incidence of lynch mob violence.”
Often, especially in death-penalty cases, the system didn’t spend enough time to get it right, and just as often didn’t care, one way or the other, Byrne said,
“During that time, the ’20s, ’30s, you saw a lot of speedy trials,” she said. “Often the defendants had attorneys who were either under-resourced, which is still an issue today, or, back then, you also saw a lot of attorneys who were less than motivated, you saw attorneys back then who might even speak against their client and say, ‘I don’t really want to be defending this person.'”
The justice system became more about form than substance.
“And so it’s kind of farcical, this idea that they were getting justice,” said Byrne. “This is kind of a new version of lynching that seems very much farcical that we’re going through the process, but the process doesn’t look very fair.”
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