RESOURCES
Information about Maury County
Information on Cordie Cheek
Video: Remembering Cordie Cheek
A Guide to the Cordie Cheek Papers, 1933-1934. Virginia Tech Special Collections, University Libraries, Collection Number Ms1987-026. Includes witness interviews and reports by Thomas Jones (president of Fisk University), Andrew Raper and Albert E. Barnett
New York Times: 12/16/1933
The Color of the Law: Gail Williams O’Brien, University of North Carolina Press, 1999
New York Times, December 16, 1933: “Cleared by the Jury, then Lynched – Columbia TN, December 15: Cordie Cheek, age 20, a negro, was found hanging from the limb of a cedar tree near here tonight. He was lynched following the refusal of a Grand Jury to indict him for molesting an 11-year old white girl.” From 100 Years of Lynchings, Ralph Ginzburg
The lynching of Cordie Cheek is the subject of Sandra Seaton’s play The Bridge Party, which is anthologized in Strange Fruit: plays on lynching by American women. The plot of The Bridge Party connects the 1933 lynching and the 1946 race riot in Columbia. Ruby Dee appeared in a 1998 production of the play at the University of Michigan.
Sources
Slavery
African American Slave Medicine, H C Covey
Hoodoo Medicine, Mitchell, Faith
The Cooking Gene, Twitty, Michael
Another America, Liberia, Ciment, James
Complete Writings of Phyllis Wheatley, Vincent Carretta
Set the Captives Free, Hunter, Carol
The Underground Railroad, Whitehead, Colson
Life on the Old Plantations, Lowery, Irving
Good Things to Eat, Estes, Rufus
American Slave Narratives Jacobs, Harriett
Ghosts of Slavery, Sharpe, Jenny
1850 U.S. Maury County Census
1850 Census Of Slave Ownership Maury County
1860 Maury County U.S. Census
African American Slave Medicine, African American Heritage Association
American Uprising, Rasmussen
Gateway to Freedom, Foner, Eric
Remembrances of Newton Cannon, Cannon, N.
Treasures of African Christmas Stories, Collier-Thom
Slavery on Tennessee Frontier, Shelton, James
Beatings Against the Barriers, Blackett, R.
God Struck Me Dead, Johnson, C.
The Overseer, Scarborough
Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, Puckett, N.
A Slave and a Free Man, Lougan, Jermaine
Southern Saga, Gupton
Collected Works of Bob Duncan
Collected Works of Jill Garrett
Maury County Historical Review, William Stuart Fleming Address on July 4, 1878
Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Zion Community, Sept. 1994
St John’s Episcopal, Vol. 10, The Best of Historical Patrollers in Maury County Maury Co Records
Civil War And Emancipation
Nimrod Porter Journal
Caroline Nicholson Journal
Fold3.com, Colored Troops
When The Yankees Came, Ash, S
Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Winter 2022, Fort Pillow
Correspondent Douglas, London Times, Reports
Middle Tennessee History Reformed 1860-1870, Ash, S
Reconstruction
Papers of Sam M. Arnell, University of Tennessee
KKK: Origins, Growth, Disbandment, Lester
Report of the General Session of the State of Tennessee Regarding Outrages Committed By The KKK In Middle Tennessee 1868
Reconstruction, Shelton
Papers of Edmund Kelley
The Black Odyssey of Lyman Johnson, Lyman Johnson
History of the Paleface, Harcourt
Freedmens Bureau Records
The Ecobusters, Columbia Daily Herald
Tennessee's Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869, Ben H. Severance, University of Tennessee Press, 2006. A good source, well documented and written, recommended for more study. Cites Senator Joshua Frierson and U.S. Representative Samuel Mayes Arnell, prominent radical Republicans from Maury County.
Segregation
The Negro Tradition, Wolfe, James
The Green Book, Green
Pete Seeger, Rosenthal
The Rest of the Dream: The Black Odyssey of Lyman Johnson, Hall, W.
The Bridge Club, Seaton, Sandra
Century Review of Maury County 1807-1907
U.S. Census 1880
Ancestry.com
The Color of the Law, O’Brien
No More Social Lynchings, Ikard
Gone But Not Forgotten, McClellan
Columbia Daily Herald Archives at Maury County Archives
Various Articles from Nashville Tennessean, New York Times, Newspapers.Com, Maury County Court Records
Civil Rights To Present
Columbia Daily Herald Archives, Integration of Schools
Maury County Historical Society