Sunday, Jul. 01, 2007

Lynching doesn’t define coaches

Shared history of 91-year-old horror becomes thing of the past

ABBEVILLE - Through the thick stench of whiskey and hate, Jesse Cann came in close to tell Anthony Crawford he was going to die.

Cann then plunged a knife into the black man's back and carved a 14-inch gash.

After a gruesome beating by a mob of more than 200 whites, including Cann, a noose was looped around Crawford's neck. He was dragged through Abbeville's town square and three blocks south and east to the fairgrounds, at the edge of Secession Avenue. Then the mob hanged Crawford from a loblolly pine and fired 200 rounds into his body.

The lynching, one of the most extreme cases of race violence in S.C. history, happened Oct. 21, 1916. It happened because Anthony Crawford, at the time one of the region's wealthiest blacks, called a white man a cheat.

Three blocks east of town square, the chill of death remains.

"Somewhere in there," says Darrell Crawford, who slows his sedan and points to his right, up a hill and toward a cluster of pines. "Up in there, where those trees are, that's where they killed him."

Darrell Crawford, Anthony's great-grandson, does not know what - being beaten, dragged, hanged and shot - killed Anthony. What Darrell knows is that four men at the center of his greatgrandfather's death shared the surname

Cann. He knows that, like the Crawfords who reside in Abbeville today, the Cann bloodline continues. And Darrell Crawford knows how close history swings toward the present.

The great-grandson of Jesse Cann, who stabbed Anthony Crawford and promised his death, is a man named Marty Cann.

Marty Cann is a coach at Abbeville High. So is Darrell Crawford.

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

Something was wrong. It had to be. Marty Cann scoured the Internet, trying to prove wrong the suggestion his family is tied to a lynching.

Marty was raised in Calhoun Falls, a town seven miles west of Abbeville. Neither his grandfather nor his parents mentioned the Crawford killing. Wires must have been crossed.

During an afternoon in May, Marty leaned against his car, his hands wringing and his eyes darting in all directions. He searched for a hole in the story, a crack in the tie that binds. He found none.

Marty, a 49-year-old elementary school physical education teacher, says he does not want to be connected with violence ..... even if his surname is.

"Three or four years ago, somebody came to me - a black lady who was a friend of mine - and asked me if I knew about that story," he says. "I said, 'No.' She said, 'Well, your last name was in the story.' All I knew was that something had happened on the square back in the early 1900s. I didn't even know the guy's name. I didn't know if this is my side of the family or not. I didn't know what part my family played in that.

"The thing I didn't want is several things: I didn't want any kid, any child that I taught, to think I had something to do with this. The older guys, they know me. They know I don't really care about anything but loving them. But (elementary school children) get things mixed up. They tell me stories all the time that happened, and that's not what really happened. They're not going to understand that I wasn't raised to judge a person by the color of his skin."

Marty's anxiety also is tied to his place in the world. Marty, who graduated from Calhoun Falls High in 1976, was in junior high when S.C schools were desegregated. He watched as whites and blacks fought on the school bus. He watched while blacks sat apart from whites in the school's cafeteria.

Marty says he never understood the gap between the races. During basketball season, three black teammates received rides home in Marty's Chevy Impala on a regular basis. He says black and white athletes playing together helped ease his transition to accepting both races as equal.

So did, in facts, words from his grandfather Stark, the son of Jesse Cann.

"He used to teach me that you love your brother, your sister, everybody. It didn't matter what color their skin was," Marty says. "If you look deep enough, you'll find goodness in somebody who is different from you."

FINDING THEIR WAY

Abbeville, a town of about 5,800 residents, once was nicknamed the "Birthplace of the Confederacy." It was here, at Secession Hill, that an ordinance was adopted in 1860 for South Carolina to secede from the Union, a decision that led to the Civil War.

The town maintains a racial divide, although tensions have cooled during recent decades. The town once harbored a Ku Klux Klan presence, but all that remains today are occasional Confederate flags along S.C. 72.

Tad DuBose, a former football teammate of Darrell Crawford's at Abbeville High, says sports helped unite the town. DuBose, a white man, was impressed by Darrell's toughness and says he saw Crawford as a teammate - not a black teammate.

Darrell played strong-side linebacker, and DuBose played weak-side linebacker; together, they led a Panthers defense based on two linebackers. When Darrell, also a track standout, ignored his limits and pounded through opponents' offensive lines, it fueled DuBose's respect for him.

"I'll stand side-by-side, week in and week out, with a guy like that anytime," DuBose says.

He says the town's athletes do not notice racial disparity. In Abbeville, where the high school has fewer than 600 students, children begin playing together in community leagues when they are as young as 5 years old.

And before individuals become a team, DuBose says, they must learn to ignore their differences.

"It ain't going to take you long to say, 'Hey, boy, I can't do this by myself,' " says DuBose, now the defensive coordinator for Abbeville's football team. "Yeah, there has been some stuff in the past. But sports just bridge that whole gap together. As coaches, we preach, 'We all come together as one up under that "A." We all bleed garnet and gold.' Around here, you learn to lean on each other."

MORNING

At the time of his death, Anthony Crawford was worth about $25,000, a fortune that, by today's standards, equates to about $475,000. He owned 427 acres and was the region's wealthiest black farmer.

On the morning of Oct. 21, 1916, Crawford loaded a carriage with cotton and steered it from his home, about seven miles west of Abbeville, into downtown. He planned to sell the cotton to a white merchant named William Barksdale. But Barksdale offered 85 cents a bushel, a nickel less than Crawford's asking price.

An argument between the two spilled outside Barksdale's store. Crawford accused Barksdale of trying to cheat him and, according to records, told Barksdale he would not sell "to any damned white man" who would not pay his asking price.

Crawford was arrested and jailed for insulting Barksdale.

Barksdale found McKinney Cann, a white farmer and a brother of Jesse Cann, and told him Crawford's jailing was not enough. Barksdale told McKinney Cann, who was considered a local strongman, to assemble a crowd for a more appropriate punishment.

A FADED LEGACY

Over the years, the story faded. The thread that linked Anthony Crawford with Darrell Crawford and Jesse Cann with Marty Cann was snapped, later eliciting unanswered questions and uninformed opinions.

Marty says his family never spoke of the lynching. Darrell, however, was too young when his family's stories were passed. He is the youngest of 11 siblings, and by the time he reached an age of understanding, Darrell's responsibilities lay on 100-yard fields and 400-meter loops. Other than occasional chunks of information, many of which were muddled and shortened by the years, Darrell says he didn't learn of his great-grandfather's death until about a decade ago.

His elder siblings, however, heard the story often. Phillip Crawford, 54, remembers gathering around his parents and grandparents, listening to them describe how Anthony spent his final day. His family owned no television, so fireside stories were the entertainment.

Words were not necessary to express the story's brutality.

"You could tell by their expression, by the way they talked about it," Phillip Crawford says of his family's memories. "They were bitter about the whole situation, how the whites done their grandfather when he was just trying to make an honest living."

It was not until Phillip and a distant cousin, Doria Dee Johnson, began researching their family's history that things became clear ...... and the names of the men who killed Anthony Crawford began resurfacing.

One of those names, Cann, appeared more frequently than others.

LEARNING TO TRUST

In 1998, the year Johnson and Phillip Crawford began researching their genealogy, a 15- year-old named Antonio "Buck" Crawford crossed paths with a man with a dubious surname.

Buck Crawford, a running back on Abbeville's football team and a distant cousin of Darrell's, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during a game. More painful was the fear that the injury might end his career. After Buck reached the sideline, Marty Cann was the first to his side.

Cann, a Panthers assistant football coach and the team's volunteer trainer, administers first aid to injured players. Cann's first task, stabilizing Buck's knee, seemed simple compared with keeping the junior calm.

"He had never been hurt before," says Cann, whose own football career ended because of knee injuries. "And it scared him."

The knee healed in time for Buck Crawford to return for his senior season, and Buck, who did not yet know of the lynching, learned to trust Cann. The pair forged a friendship.

Before Abbeville's final game in 1999, Buck Crawford slid back on a counter in the Panthers' locker room. He lifted his foot so that Cann could apply tape to Buck's ankle, a typical pregame ritual that protects ankle ligaments. After Cann applied the final layer of white tape, Buck noticed that tears had welled in Cann's eyes.

"Well, Buck," Cann said, "it's your last game. I'm going to miss you guys."

Buck lifted himself off the counter and offered his right hand to his friend. Cann turned the handshake into a hug.

"He was crying," says Buck Crawford, who learned about the lynching several years ago. "You see somebody do that, the hug gets tighter. The handshake gets even tighter. When you're out there with other guys, you learn how to trust each other. It's like race don't matter.

"I know me and Marty are changing our ways because of each other."

AFTERNOON

What happened after Anthony Crawford arrived in downtown Abbeville is weathered and dusty, the kind of information shoved into old folders and ignored for decades. According to a November 1916 account from John B. Egan, an investigator appointed by then-Gov. Richard Manning, produce salesman Barksdale asked McKinney Cann to exact revenge on Crawford for insulting him. Cann and his three brothers drank whiskey and organized a mob that would confront Crawford after he was released from jail.

After his release, Crawford, seeing the group racing toward him, picked up a four-pound hammer and struck McKinney Cann in the head. Thinking McKinney's injury would kill him - he recovered weeks later - the mob had all the reason it needed to kill Crawford.

Jesse Cann, a brother of McKinney Cann, held Abbeville's sheriff while the mob grabbed Crawford and dragged him, feet first, down the jailhouse steps. Once he was in the street, the three remaining Cann brothers threw rocks at Crawford and did not allow him to stand.

Sam Adams, whom records indicate was the leader of the mob, held a rope while he motioned for the crowd to join in the beating. Kinney Cann, another brother, whipped Crawford with the rope. Jesse Cann kicked him as he lay on the street.

Jesse Cann leaned toward the fallen Crawford. He said: "You killed my brother, damn you. And I'll kill you."

Crawford turned on his stomach to get away. Jesse Cann jammed a knife into Crawford's back and made a 14-inch gash. Another man, Eugene Nance, threw a large rock at Crawford, ripping flesh from his face and head.

Adams looped the rope around Crawford's head and tied it to a wagon. Crawford was dragged around Abbeville's town square, then three blocks to Secession Hill. The mob found a loblolly pine tree and threw the rope's end over a branch. As Crawford hanged, 50 to 60 white men stood in front of him, aligned like a firing squad, and emptied their guns into the black man's body.

The ordeal lasted more than an hour. Crawford's body was thrown into the back of the wagon and was dumped into an unmarked grave.

All that was left on Secession Hill was a bullet-riddled undershirt that had been torn from his torso, and a pair of blood-soaked socks that lay beneath where Anthony Crawford spent his final, miserable seconds.

THE ROAD TO FORGIVENESS

Seven years after the Crawford family genealogy was published on an Internet site, things began to change. There was empathy in Abbeville County. More important, there were apologies.

The Crawfords began hearing comforting words from white neighbors, many of whom had not heard the story in such gruesome detail. In June 2005, the Crawford family was invited to a church service during which Abbeville County officials formally apologized for Anthony Crawford's lynching. A month later, representatives from the U.S. Senate called.

Darrell and Phillip Crawford crammed three days' worth of clothing into a sedan and headed north to Washington, D.C. They entered the Capitol and walked into the Senate, where they, along with a handful of other descendants of lynching victims, heard one of history's 10 resolutions of apology - an admission of wrongdoing by the government - for never passing an anti-lynching law.

It was the longest step the Crawfords had taken toward healing.

"It felt like they wanted to correct some wrongs that were done in the past," Phillip Crawford says. "You have to forgive and move on with life. All those things like this, it will forever be with you. But you have to deal with daily activities now."

DARKNESS

It would be comforting to read the men who lynched Anthony Crawford were brought to justice, that they were punished appropriately for Crawford's brutal killing. It would be gratifying to know Crawford's family - his death left 13 children without a breadwinner - lived comfortably on their patriarch's fortune and lifetime of land ownership.

But neither of these things is true.

After Egan's investigation report reached Gov. Manning, nine men, including Jesse Cann, were arrested for killing Anthony Crawford. None of those men was brought to trial; a grand jury concluded there was insufficient evidence. The Cann brothers died as old men having never served a day in jail in connection with Crawford's death.

Crawford's children were ordered to leave Abbeville County and abandon the 427 acres, farm equipment and livestock that Anthony Crawford had acquired during his 61 years. The land was turned over to Barksdale, whom Crawford had called a cheat.

Crawford's children spent the night of the lynching perched in trees, the barrels of guns pointed toward the road in case the mob came to finish the family.

On Nov. 25, 1916, Crawford's eldest son, Anthony Jr., wrote a letter to Manning, asking for advice and protection. The younger Crawford, at the time a minister in Due West, pleaded with Manning to allow the family to remain on its land.

Instead, many family members left of their own volition, abandoning Abbeville and their inheritance to ensure their safety. Many, including the ancestors of Doria Dee Johnson, moved to Evanston, Ill., a Chicago suburb. More than nine decades after Anthony Crawford's death, those who left have no intention of returning to South Carolina.

"The first time I went, I felt terrorized," Johnson says. "I just remembered what had happened there and knew that justice wasn't served. It's an uncomfortable situation. My dad, still to this day, does not go South. So many people were terrorized there. That terror, that pain, it just passes itself through the generations."

REVISITING A MEMORY

Marty Cann had a dream during college that made no sense. It involved Jesse Cann, his great-grandfather. But how could that be?

Jesse Cann died when Marty was 3 years old, too young to establish solid memories.

Still, the details were haunting. Marty saw things in his dream that must have seeped into his subconscious, such as the layout of Jesse's house and his greatgrandfather's physical features. After the dream, Marty felt something, a psychological connection that defied generations. Marty's grandfather Stark told the youngster he was the last person Jesse spoke to before he died, that he must have shared a bond with the old man.

Marty believed his greatgrandfather was a respected man with a clean history.

Now, Marty says he did not know Jesse after all - and does not want to.

"It bothers me that my greatgrandfather was involved," Marty says, shortly after learning the details of Jesse's involvement. "I was a straight defender of him - and he did that. That bothers me. It's just not right. I can understand, of course, he was incensed and thought his brother was dead. But, you know, that just bothers me."

'WE CALL EACH OTHER COACH'

So how can it be done? How can men from two sides of one extreme not only coexist but also interact and fight for the same goals? How can Darrell Crawford and Marty Cann brush away the past - and all it carries - and focus only on what lies ahead?

Simple as it sounds, both men say it is by working for a common cause: Abbeville Panthers sports. Darrell and Marty each say they do not tie the other to what happened in the past, that four generations is enough to cleanse what happened more than 90 years ago.

"Our ancestors went through so much to give us the opportunities that we have today," says Darrell, Abbeville's boys track coach. "We know our history, and we can gain strength from our history. But we also have to use our history as a way of saying that we're going to improve."

What is coaching but the continual pursuit of improvement? Young athletes meet coaches when they are uncertain of themselves and their abilities. They often leave with new confidence and the belief they can overcome challenges. One of the most difficult challenges is forgiveness and learning to trust, even if the past contains heartbreaking facts.

Marty says he has accepted his ancestors were at the center of a heinous event. But he says, with the passage of time, opinions and values can shift with dramatic results.

Change, however, is gradual - like the improvement coaches see in athletes.

"Through the years, my children and their parents know I had nothing to do with that and that I would never condone that," Cann says. "It's a shame something like that happened. If I were alive during that time, that wouldn't be something I would do. They know me and know my heart and know that I would never have those thoughts against someone of a different color."

Marty and Darrell offer proof when identifying their favorite athletes. One of Cann's favorites was Buck Crawford.

Darrell's favorite was Zack Little, a white distance runner who graduated in 2006. In his three seasons at Abbeville, Little was the only white athlete on the boys' track team. Little says he never felt out of place because of Darrell.

"I am coach Crawford's white son," Little says. "I was just part of the family of our team. We got along like there was really no skin color there."

Marty and Darrell teach at different schools, Marty at two elementary schools and Darrell at the Abbeville County Career Center. They also coach during different seasons, Marty during autumn and Darrell during spring. Their interactions are limited.

Still, the men see each other in passing. There are no hidden faces or slumped shoulders, no embarrassment or crosses to bear. There are no grudges outstanding or leftover hate because of what happened three generations earlier. The animosity shared by their forefathers has been washed away by the years and by change.

Each man looks into the eyes of the other, nods and acknowledges the thing that connects them now - not what connected their ancestors.

"We call each other 'coach,'" Darrell says. "You can live in bitterness, or you can choose to live in love and forgiveness. I choose to live in love and forgiveness."

In eight weeks, the high school football season begins. Sports will return to full bloom to one small town in the Piedmont. There, two men have learned to forget their ancestors' paths, intersected by hate, inequality and violence.

Darrell Crawford and Marty Cann have come together because of high school sports, where games are nothing if not innocent.

Sports cannot erase the past between the Crawfords and the Canns. But they can serve as a bridge across the divide.

"You have to kind of remember the past but, at the same time, put the past in the past and move on with life," Darrell Crawford says. "We've got to live in this world with one another, no matter where we go."

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