ago and was taken in at the Woman's Refuge in the southern part of the
city. She remained there until a few weeks ago, when the child was born.
The ladies in charge of the Refuge were horified. The girl was at once
sent to the City Hospital, where she has been since May 30. She is a
country girl. She came to Memphis from her fathers farm, a short
distance from Hernando, Miss. Just when she left there she would not
say. In fact she says she came to Memphis from Arkansas, and says her
home is in that State. She is rather good looking, has blue eyes, a low
forehead and dark red hair. The ladies at the Woman's Refuge do not know
anything about the girl further than what they learned when she was an
inmate of the institution; and she would not tell much. When the child
was born an attempt was made to get the girl to reveal the name of the
Negro who had disgraced her, she obstinately refused and it was
impossible to elicit any information from her on the subject.

Note the wording. "The truth might reveal fearful depravity or rank
outrage." If it had been a white child or Lillie Bailey had told a pitiful
story of Negro outrage, it would have been a case of woman's weakness or
assault and she could have remained at the Woman's Refuge. But a Negro
child and to withhold its father's name and thus prevent the killing of
another Negro "rapist." A case of "fearful depravity."

The very week the "leading citizens" of Memphis were making a spectacle of
themselves in defense of all white women of every kind, an Afro-American,
M. Stricklin, was found in a white woman's room in that city. Although
she made no outcry of rape, he was jailed and would have been lynched, but
the woman stated she bought curtains of him (he was a furniture dealer)
and his business in her room that night was to put them up. A white
woman's word was taken as absolutely in this case as when the cry of rape
is made, and he was freed.