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The Farm And Pokey Barnes

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It was hot, and sticky July afternoon in 1895 Lunenburg, Virginia when Edward Pollard found his wife’s, Lucy Jane Pollard, dead body lying on the ground with an axe next to it. She was on her way to set her hens when the murder happened. There were immediately suspects thrown into the case, three being African American women, Pokey Barnes, Mary Barnes, and Mary Abernathy, all of which had connections to the Pollard’s farm. Mary Barnes and Mary Abernathy both worked on the farm and Pokey Barnes was the Pollards neighbor and lived next to the farm. Mary Abernathy was the last person to see Lucy Jane Pollard alive and within 24 of the murder, she was in custody. The other suspect was Solomon Marable, the only male suspect in the case. He was …show more content…

The 14th amendment guaranteed citizenship to blacks and demolished the Naturalized Act of 1790 which limited it to only whites. The 15th amendment allowed African American men the right to vote which lead to many of them to seek office positions and utilizing public education. (History.com, n.p) Even with these amendments and acts passed giving African Americans more rights and more freedom, whites in the country still discriminated against them. During reconstruction in the 1870’s, white’s that opposed black rights came into power and formed groups like the Red Shirts. The Redshirts were a white terrorist groups that were active in the southern states during the end of the Reconstruction period. (ncpedia.org, Hunt) They were influential enough to encourage smaller groups to form in other states and eventually lead to the Ku Klux Klan to form. Other tortuous acts happened in the southern states when the white supremacists gained political power like lynching, which is what the four suspects in the Lucy Jane Pollard murder case faced if they were not properly protected. The most lynching in the United States happened during the years of 1882 to 1920, right through the time of the murder. The white supremacists that took power in the south also imposed Jim Crow laws which were laws enforcing racial segregation. These laws,

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