The lynching at The Curve in Memphis --- Part I

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett 

(July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931)

The lynching at The Curve in Memphis

In 1889, a black proprietor named Thomas Moss opened the People's Grocery in a South Memphis neighborhood nicknamed "The Curve." 

Wells was close to Moss and his family, having stood as godmother to his first child. Moss's store did well and competed with a white-owned grocery store across the street, owned by William Barrett. 

On March 2, 1892, a young black boy named Armour Harris was playing a game of marbles with a young white boy named Cornelius Hurst in front of the People's Grocery.

 The two boys got into an argument and a fight during the game. As the black boy Harris began to win the fight, the father of Cornelius Hurst intervened and began to "thrash" Harris. 

 The People's Grocery employees William Stewart and Calvin McDowell saw the fight and rushed outside to defend the young Harris from the adult Hurst as people in the neighborhood gathered in to what quickly became a "racially charged mob."^[18]