Freedom-Loving Heroes During Jim Crow Terror: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Mrs. Katherine Bailey¹

At the time of the lynching, "Flossie," as she was known to her friends, was thirty-five years old, the wife of a doctor with a thriving practice, and mother of a son. She was also the president of the Marion branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the leading civil rights organization in the country at the time.

Under her energetic, committed and expert leadership, the Marion NAACP had grown to almost 100 members by the night of the lynching. The leading black families in town were members. The handful of white members included the town's mayor and one of its newspaper reporters.

Everyone in town-white and black alike - knew Mrs. Dr. Bailey. Many years after her death, people would still remember her as a "hotrod," "a born leader," and "very cultured." Flossie was warmhearted and kind, a good-looking, stylish woman who always appeared poised. She was an impressive orator, as well as an excellent organizer who daily juggled a myriad of details, phone calls, telegrams, letters, and meetings.

Like many in town, Flossie began to hear about a plan to lynch the jailed suspects early in the afternoon of August 7th, shortly after Claude Deeter died. She began making phone calls and sending telegrams seeking to have the alleged murders moved for their safety to another lock-up away from Grant County. At very least she wanted additional law enforcement protection for the prisoners. She called the county sheriff, who told her not to worry, that he was not aware of any such plan. She called the mayor's office, but he was away in Indianapolis for the day. She called the governor; he was on a fishing trip in Canada. When she begged his assistant, a Marion native, to send protection, he hung up on her. The lynching would proceed.

But Mrs. Bailey did not give up. Shortly after the lynching, she heard that a white mob was threatening to torch the black section of Marion. While many black residents fled town, Flossie spent the wee hours in her home exchanging telegrams with NAACP leaders, informing them of the situation so they, too, could act. The pressure she brought to bear finally resulted in the arrival of the Indiana National Guard - three days after the atrocity.

Still Flossie did not rest. She demanded that members of the lynch mob be identified and tried. She wrote to the Executive Director of the national NAACP, Walter White, an expert in lynchings, insisting that he immediately come to Marion to investigate. She provided him with background information. Mrs. Bailey also advised the light-skinned blue-eyed White to pose as a white man, so that he could more safely and easily speak with witnesses of the event.

Director White found the sheriff to be grossly negligent in his duty and urged the governor and attorney general to prosecute, since the county prosecutor was reluctant to take action, because it might anger and provoke the mob to further violence. White helpfully included with his letter a list of persons that participated in the lynching, according to eyewitnesses he interviewed.

Largely due to Mrs. Bailey's efforts, two of the lynchers were brought to trial. The all-white, all-male jury found them not guilty. All her life Flossie would feel a sense of failure, because no one was ever punished for the murders of Abe and Tommy. She was, however, instrumental in saving James Cameron from the electric chair, by working with the NAACP to bring two excellent black attorneys from Indianapolis to defend him in court. They were able to convince another white jury that Cameron was only an accessory to Deeter's murder, resulting in a prison sentence of two to 21 years.

Her work angered segments of the region's white community. She and her husband received threatening calls and letters. White men drove by her house at night making their cars backfire to sound like gunshots. Nevertheless, following the Marion lynching, Mrs. Bailey organized a grassroots push for an Indiana antilynching statute that would remove from office any sheriff from whose jail a prisoner was lynched. It became law in 1931. This law was instrumental in preventing a subsequent threatened lynching in Marion almost seven years to the day of the 1930 atrocity. Flossie and the NAACP also worked for a proposed federal anti-lynching law-but no such law was ever passed.²

Mrs. Bailey also fought other forms of discrimination, including hospitals that denied treatment to black patients and training to black medical students, and well as school segregation. She and her husband unsuccessfully sued a Marion movie house after they were denied admission due to their skin color.

In addition to coping with the Great Depression and race and gender discrimination, Flossie suffered from bad health. She had a serious heart condition for which she underwent surgery in 1934. Dr. Bailey had a stroke in 1940, closed his practice and died ten years later. In the end, the couple struggled financially and had to accept help from friends. Mrs. Bailey wrote to Walter White that she regretted not being able to do more. This courageous and committed woman passed away at the age of 57 and was buried in Marion.

The Deeters³