Come As You Are, Hoods Not Required: The 1942 Lynching of James Edward Person in Vigo County, Indiana, and Edgar County, Illinois

Author

Renatto Vontez Carr, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

12-1-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Historical Studies

First Advisor

Jack, Bryan

Abstract

"Come as you are, Hoods Not Required: The 1942 Lynching of James Edward Person in Vigo County, Indiana and Edgar County, Illinois” contextualizes the life and events surrounding the 1942 lynching of James Edward Person, which began in Vigo County, Indiana, and ended in Edgar County, Illinois. It demonstrates how white supremacy in the rural Midwest, specifically within Vigo and Edgar Counties in the mid-twentieth century, did not have statutory backing but nonetheless was structured to subjugate African Americans. This dissertation highlights the fluidity of racist statutes and the anxiety of the white population in these rural Midwestern towns. Born and raised in Fayette County, Tennessee, drafted into the military during World War II, and eventually executed on Illinois soil, Person’s life serves as a window into the racialized world in which he lived but also attempted to navigate.Before leaving Somerville, Tennessee, for Jackson, Tennessee, Person was in the process of getting divorced from his estranged wife. According to contemporaneous newspaper reports and to historians such as Brent M. S. Campney, some Somerville residents suspected that James boarded a freight train in Jackson on September 20, bound for Chicago, Illinois, searching for employment.[1] Other Somerville residents thought James planned to seek medical attention in Chicago. Unbeknownst to Columbus, his wife Topsy (or Topsie), and their other children Julius, Ethel Mae, and Ransom, they never again would see James alive: a White lynch mob slew him in Illinois on October 12Person’s lynching transcends a simplistic story about racial hatred or a cramped narrative about rural, White, Midwestern community members hunting and executing a man because he was Black. Person’s lynching makes clear that White supremacy in the rural Midwest has a more complicated history than many scholars have recognized or emphasized. While racial and ethnic violence in the U.S. has transcended regions and state boundaries, scholars attempting to discern the long history of anti-Black racism and ethnic bias in the country have underexplored rural Midwestern towns. My dissertation facilitates analysis of the Midwest while simultaneously raising questions for further and much-needed research. Of equal significance, Person’s story is an account of family: blood and adopted, nuclear and extended, home and neighborhood. Person’s Somerville, Tennessee, community provided adoration, solace, and guidance. After his conscription into the U.S. Army, Person never regained that sense of community. Quite the opposite, he returned to Somerville, fighting personal challenges including a divorce from his wife that active military service in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and Alexandria, Louisiana, exacerbated.Christopher, Topsy, Julius, Ethel, and Ransom Person worked hard to assist their beloved son and brother readjust to civilian life. When he left Somerville for Chicago to avoid increasing mental anguish and wound up missing, Christopher contacted radio stations and newspapers, seeking to locate his son. Once a White mob lynched him in Stratton Township, Illinois, Christopher wrote letters to American Legion commanders in Jackson, Tennessee, as well as to public and private citizens elsewhere in the country. As a grieving parent, Christopher sought answers; furthermore, he sought justice. Through his determination and effort, the commanders he contacted brought James’s lynching death to the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, whose administrators facilitated an FBI probe that resulted in one of the first indictments and trial proceedings of White terrorists in the Midwest who violated the civil rights of a Black citizen.