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Thread: Okay so here’s a few things that every black person in Terre Haute should know about especially the college students. Don’t let this history be erased. https://twitter.com/disbeatis/status/1325862065676935168
There’s a book by a man named James Loewen who studied for years the history in certain areas being “Sundown Towns”. This was basically a warning to black people and minorities to not be found in that city or area after dark and guess what town was listed? West Terre Haute.
1/2 The Horseshoe Club: (not the one currently, the one I’m talking about closed there was a restaurant back in the mid 1900s that a lot of men (white men particularly) would go to and the owner wouldn’t allow black people inside of the establishment. How?
2/2 He kept a “members list” and would ask people who came in if they would like to become a member. This was a way for him to “keep certain people out”. He also didn’t allow women who were wives to come in and they had to come in with their husbands if they did.
1/2 Indiana Theater: I’m pretty sure everyone has seen this building at some point. This place was segregated for decades. The exterior of the staircase in the back of the building would lead to an entrance to the theatre’s balcony. This would be where the minority theater
2/2 would have to climb the stairs to watch the show from their seats. Also, there was a chain linked fence that separated the blacks and the whites.
Okay so this right here had me shook. A black man by the name of George Ward was lynched here for being the accused murderer of Ida Finklestein on February 26, 1901...y’all they was clowning.
1/2 So basically Ida Finklestein was a 20 year old school teacher who would take almost the same route to and from the school. On February 25, 1901 she was attacked by “a negroe dressed as a hunter”. She was shot in the head, her throat was slit where her windpipe went out,
and was brutally beaten from head to toe. She was sent to Union Hospital where she was recovering and later was pronounced deceased later that day. She was able to provide a description and the police went to searching...
They end up taking Ward into custody where he confessed to the murder of Ida Finklestein & that’s when things start to get crazy. The news spread to the community of Terre Haute and that’s when a mob started to form around the police headquarters.
They had a hard time getting him to the county jail from the police headquarters so they were thinking they may have to move him to another city. The plan was that they were going to send him on the first train to Indianapolis but the people in TH heard the news of the plan
Then more people started to swarm the county jail...like over 1,000. Around noon, the mob decides to break down the jail doors and demand the keys or they would tear down the jail.
Ward was then dragged out of the jail doors and was hit in the head with a sledgehammer. Had a rope tied around his neck where he was dragged to the Wabash River bridge where his body was thrown over hanging above the water. This shit is sad.
That wasn’t enough for them y’all. Someone said “burn him” and pulled his body back up and took him to the West Bank of the River where they created a huge bonfire with kerosene and burned him. (the images from my previous tweets show them) No remains were left of Ward.
George Ward was never tried in the court of law nor did Ida Finklestein get due process. I found the full description of the lynching here:
These aren’t my photos but you can definitely find these images here at the historical museum in Terre Haute but the full story isn’t provided by the exhibit. The dirt was a symbol of what happened and they did a memorial around March of last year I believe.
I went on that bridge and I’m not going to lie it’s scary to even think that something like that happened over there.
Okay so moving along to a guy by the name of Dr. Winton Jones Sr. who was the only African American pharmacist in Terre Haute, Indiana. He graduated from Butler University and was unable to find work in his field because he was black. So guess what he did?
He founded his own business in 1925 on the south side of Terre Haute and this was the only pharmacy in town where African Americans would be allowed to sit and eat things like ice cream sundaes, or drink a milkshake FOR about 40 YEARS. We love to see it.
Dr. Jones continued to operate his own neighborhood grocery for 52 years, closing in 1977, due to the expansion and increasing competition from larger pharmaceutical store chains in the city.
More information on racial discrimination in Terre Haute, aye Iverson Bell wasn’t having it lbs. 
Also, if you were black and had a home in West Terre Haute and the people in the area would threatened to burn your house down and would tell you that you weren’t welcomed in that area. They tried so hard to keep black people out of that area.
Even after the situation with George Ward it made a lot of the black men move to other areas out of fear of Ward’s situation happening to them.
