She was never able to tell, even in her own thoughts, what happened to her in that terrible moment. To her before that dread day, race had been a relative matter, something that did exist but of which one was not conscious except when it was impressed upon one. The death before her very eyes of that unknown man shook from her all the apathy of the past. There flashed through her mind in letters that seared her brain the words, “I too am a Negro!” …
“Come on, Mimi, we’ve got to get out of this!”
Jean’s words made her uncover her face. From nearby Decatur Street, thoroughfare of saloons and dives, of pawnshops and rooming-houses, of cheap restaurants and tailor shops, there came the crash of breaking glass.
“They’re breaking into the pawnshops to get weapons,” was Jean’s correct conjecture. Here—there everywhere the howling mobs rushed. Street cars were stopped, Negroes pulled from them, stabbed, kicked, beaten to death. Few shots were fired—the quarters were too close—some member of the mob might get hurt.
A shout went up that made all others seem puny. Out of a side street lurched a carriage drawn by two horses. On the box there half crouched a white man. Taut reins in left hand, in the right he held a long, winding, cruel-looking whip. In the back crouched two frightened Negroes. On and on the carriage swayed and rushed. The driver with one motion lashed the foaming horses, with almost the same sweep he swung backwards and across at the yelling men who sprang at the carriage like starving wolves at a dangling carcass.
Shouts of pain and fury from the lashed, who fell back, huge welts on their faces, mingled with the pounding of the horses’ hoofs. Above it all there came a piercing yell from the driver, an obbligato of exultation and challenge welling above the deeper-throated rumble of the crowd.