125 Acres

January 21st, 1897, started like most knights did for George Denning and his family on their farm in southern Kentucky. George had dinner with his wife Molly and their children. There were seven at home with them. The youngest was four months old, and the oldest was twelve. Then George gathered firewood and stoked the stove. It was a cold night. And then they'd all gotten into their beds, and they were kind of crowded together. They slept several kids to each bed. And after a period of time, many of them had fallen asleep somewhere around midnight, the dogs started barking outside, and this kind of woke them all up. Author Ben Montgomery. And you know, this is an event that was recalled in court and depositions many times by many different people. And so we have lots of different versions of events. But the clearest timeline is that after George Denning's family wake up from the dogs barking, they then hear voices outside their home. George Denning and his family had lived in their home for almost fifteen years. It was on a plot of 125 acres of land that George had purchased from the family that had enslaved him and his parents. He'd grown up there enslaved by a man named David Denning until he was ten years old, when the thirteenth amendment was ratified, and he was emancipated. In the years after the Civil War, he worked earn enough money to buy the land, and by his mid-30s he had. He also bought two horses, seven hogs, twenty-four chickens, four turkeys, and a plow. He grew tobacco, which did well in the soil there, and built the two-story cabin by hand. What did it mean for a black man at that time to be able to buy land and build a house on it? It was a big deal. He had been born into slavery and was among the first generation, certainly in the south, the first generation of emancipated people to own property. It would have been a huge deal. It was uncommon. None of his neighbors who owned farms around him immediately and his vicinity were black like he was. When George Denning heard the voices outside his home that night, in 1897, he went to the door, but he didn't open it. He called out who's out there, and they refused to identify themselves. Where are your friends, they said? There were twenty-five white men outside, and about half of them were carrying guns. The men outside called him by name and said, "Come outside. We need to talk to you." They demanded he step onto the porch. He's saying, "No, who's out there?" They're saying, "We're your friends. We just want to talk." He says, "No, if you're my friends, you'd show your face." By the way, he had seen outside that they had covered their faces. Many of them knew they weren't wearing hoods of the clan, but they were wearing bandanas sort of wrapped over their mouths, disguising their identity. He said, "If you were my friends, then you wouldn't be hiding your faces," and you'd say exactly who you were. The men told George, "They were there because they believed he'd been stealing meat from their smokehouses." He protested. He said, "You know me, if you're my friends, then you know that I'm a good, upstanding man." He said, "Also, I can line up a number of upstanding white people who will vouch for me, so don't just take my word for it, but give me a chance to call upon our upstanding white neighbors to say that I'm a good guy." This wasn't satisfying to them. They wanted him to come outside, and it was somewhere in this quick back and forth, which lasted somewhere between a minute and two minutes that somebody opened fire from the back side of the house. The men in the front of the house, then immediately, many of them under the assumption probably that they were being fired upon from someone inside the house. They start returning fire and firing against the house. We know from testimony later that their leader, the guy who'd kind of been doing the talking on the front porch, his name was Doc Moore. He was a civil war veteran. He said, "Shout it to all of them. Squat and fire. Squat and fire, and the men do. If they've got a gun, they squat and fire right at Denning's house." There were so many bullets that George Denning first thought someone had thrown dynamite into the house. His children would later testify a couple of them that they witnessed bullets, a sail through the air, through their cabin. Denning's 12-year-old daughter would testify in court that a bullet went through her hair. As soon as the gunshots started, he went for his own rifle. Not far away, in Memphis, Tennessee, Ida B. Wells, the black journalist was writing right around this time about the importance for black people and the rural south to arm themselves because lynching was so common, and it was getting, it seemed to her, more frequent. She said, "Famously, a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give." So whether Denning had a rifle for hunting, which was common or for his own protection, which may also have been common, I don't know. But he grabbed his rifle and he started making his way upstairs. And as he passed the window on the east side of the house, he felt pain in his arm and his left bicep and looked down and saw blood, but he was on his way up the steps, so he continued up the steps. The top of the steps were a window with wooden shutters. The window did not have a glass pane, just these two wooden shutters. And as he reached the window, he threw it open and leaned out with his gun at his shoulder. And just as he squeezed off one shot of bird shot from a double-barreled shotgun, he took a bullet right in his forehead. What we know is the bullet entered his skin at his forehead and traveled up under the skin, but above his skull, it didn't penetrate the skull, but traveled under his skin and then came out about three inches from where it had entered his forehead. He immediately retreats back into the house, the bullet wound to his head and a bullet wound to his left arm. And as soon as his shot is fired, almost immediately all the guns outside fall silent. And there's stillness for a second. And the men are heard retreating away from the house. And it's at this time that George Denning must have, you know, been faced with a decision. What do I do? What do I do? What is the best and safest thing for us in this moment? And he decided to get out of the house, to bolt. He ran outside out the back door to the nearest tall grass he could find and threw himself down, and just waited and listened. And when he was sure the men were gone and retreat, he finally, finally got up off the ground. He's in his night clothes. He got up off the ground and went back to the house and his wife Molly had met him there with his boots and his jacket. They both knew that he couldn't stay. I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal. We'll be right back to listen without ads. Join Criminal Plus. Have you ever wondered who invented rock and roll or why Fleetwood Mac fell apart or what it was like at Motown in the early years? Well, do I have a podcast for you? My name is Will Anderson. I'm a songwriter, a musician, and a huge music history buff. And I'm so excited to announce my new podcast, The Monday Music Club. I teamed up to make this podcast with a Vox media podcast network because ever since I was a kid, I loved hearing and reading stories about classic artists recording sessions and music history. And I wanted to have a place to be able to take what I've learned and share some of those favorites with you. Every Monday, I'll be releasing a new episode and deep diving into a new story with experts and special guests and it's going to be a blast. So if you're a music history geek like me, or even just a casual music fan, jump in because I promise my name music club is going to be the podcast for you. After he got dressed, George Denning ran half a mile to the house of one of his white neighbors, a man he considered a friend. He couldn't rouse him. He shouted outside and couldn't get the guys' attention. And if you pause for a second and think about this, this might be a tricky situation, right? He's pretty sure that he trusts this guy. But doesn't know for a fact that this guy wasn't among the white people who were there at his house that night, right? so So when he calls out and no lights come on and he calls out again and And here's no sound, you know, he took off running again So he tries again another white neighbor who lives nearby and and this neighbor he wakes and the man examines Denning he sees the gunshot wound in his bicep. He sees the gunshot wound in Denning's head Denning is holding his double-barreled shotgun. He sees that one shot has been discharged from that He asks what happened and Denning Denning tells him what he knows and So he spends a few hours there and just as the sun starts to come up He's gonna make a break for it to check on Molly and the kids, but on his way He is met by a black friend who tells him the bad news that That one shot that he squeezed off from the upstairs room had struck and killed a man named Jody Khan And he must have suspected then because Jody Khan was the 32-year-old sion of one of the wealthiest families in that region it would have been very easy for George Denning to predict what might happen next which was people would be looking for vengeance What did he do next after he heard about? About Jody well, he couldn't go home. He realized this would have been incredibly dangerous What he decided to do was walk nine miles from where they lived in the rural southern part of the county to the county seat of Franklin and turn himself in to the sheriff this at the time was not You know, there would have been a lot of risk. Let's say involved in turning yourself into a southern sheriff You're a black man to turn yourself over to the sheriff Often meant to turn yourself over to the Lynch mob and we see evidence all over the state of Kentucky and northern Tennessee This very thing happening black men and women accused of crimes Maybe they would be arrested or maybe they would turn themselves in and and the mob would show up outside the jail Demand the keys the jailer would fain some kind of resistance and then turn over the keys and the mob would take the accused and carry out vigilante Justice if you will in the form of lynching and some often in some public place in some public way But the sheriff and George Denning knew each other Sheriff Clark had heard about what had happened at George Denning's house and it started preparing to get George out of town as quickly and quietly as possible Men had already started gathering outside the jail when the sheriff put George into a carriage and Road with him about 20 miles north to another jail in the bigger city of bowling green and Denning would have known that he had just You know through his good fortune or the protection of this man He had just escaped what would have been an attempt on his life by a Lynch mob and What was happening back back at his house with his wife and children? So Denning had no idea what was going on but some of the men who had been there that night The night before some of the men who had even dressed Jody Kong's wounds with whiskey and cotton had come back to his house the next morning and They had found by the way his 14-year-old son who had been staying with his grandmother and grandfather that that was Denning's mother and father They the men abducted that boy and they basically held him and the rest of the family at their little home For most of the day on Saturday hoping their George Denning would return and when he didn't when they learned that he had turned himself in to sheriff Clark they demanded that Molly and the children leave the county and leave the state in fact Some of the testimony would later say they said ride 50 miles and don't stop until you get at least 50 miles away They had two horses Molly loaded her children on to the two horses She walked they they took what they could a couple of feather beds and as they walked away the men set fire to the house and To any various outbuildings and to the fields Jolene knew as they were walking away that the house was gone They would have smelled the smoke Molly later said I was so badly frightened when I left that I did not take time to put wrappings on myself for children They had eaten That night they rode all the way to Tennessee to Molly's brother's house On the way black families came out to the road carrying food and handed it up to the children The sheriff and George Denning arrived at the jail in bowling green around seven that evening Not long after the jailer received word that a mob was forming and on its way and He was so worried about this that he armed some of the prisoners because that's how serious this was He wasn't about to let the Lynch mob take his prisoner But they do realize they need to get George Denning he somewhere even safer and so He's once again loaded up and not into a carriage this time but into a train and sent to Louisville Which is the biggest city in Kentucky at the time and probably offers the most protection Even though he had turned himself in George Denning hadn't been charged with anything because The only people there who could testify to what had happened Were men who had armed themselves disguised their faces muffled their voices and shown up on the port front porch of a black man That they were trying to threaten so to to testify to what had happened These men had to go public. They had to say I was there. I was involved George waited in jail in Louisville for more than a month before he was indicted for the murder of Jody Khan The trial scheduled for late June it would be the first time George returned to the county since he'd been relocated from the jail there for his own safety Almost 300 soldiers escorted him from Louisville One officer told a reporter that he'd heard that friends of Jody Khan were planning to take George away from the troops as soon as he arrived And that it has been said that a regiment of soldiers can't prevent his being hanged The lieutenant governor sent soldiers with two cannons to guard the county jail The governor banned guns from the courtroom and ordered for everyone who came in to be searched On June 30th George Denning arrived at the courthouse in a three-piece suit Members of a black Baptist church in Louisville had taken up a collection to buy it for him He was surrounded by eight soldiers carrying rifles station there to protect him The first witnesses to testify were some of the men who had shown up at George's house that night It almost sounds rehearsed if you read the transcript It's like they used the same language to describe what they were doing Their story was they assembled in the evening because they were concerned about some stealing that had been going on in the neighborhood They all claimed that when they got to Denning's they were ambushed that they were they're peacefully Trying to coax him outside so they might have a civilized conversation with him and he fired on them frontman up and upstairs window and their story was that they did not fire or return fire until they were fired upon When George Denning's lawyer asked one of them What was the purpose of keeping him from knowing who you were? He answered we didn't want him to know I guess George Denning's lawyer called the jailer at Bowling Green a white farmer who lived near George Denning and had heard gunshots that night The white neighbor who George had spoken to that night and Another white farmer who saw the bullet holes in the house the next morning He also called a black neighbor who agreed to testify despite the risk He said that he'd heard what sounded like pistols firing before he heard what would have been George's shotgun George's 12-year-old daughter Eva took the stand and described hearing shooting before her father ran upstairs to her bedroom and shot out the window She also described bullets flying through her hair George Denning testified that he'd been scared that night When his lawyer asked him if he believed when he fired his gun that he and his family were in danger George replied Yes, sir because they shot me first and of course. I knew I was in danger By the time the jury adjourned for deliberations newspapers around the country were reporting on George Denning's trial People were paying attention outside of this small town, Franklin, Kentucky, they were paying attention because this case dealt with some fundamental civil rights issues. Could a man protect himself with deadly force inside of his own home if he was attacked? Question one, everyone answers yes, you know, across the board. Question two, could a black man protect himself using deadly force in his own home when he's under attack? We'll be right back. Before we get back to the show, just a note to say, this fall, I'm going on the road with a big experiment. It's a brand new live show all about me and my family and secrets. It's totally different from anything we've done before. We're going to announce the full run of tour date soon, but first, we've got a couple of special shows coming up in just a few weeks. I'll be in Durham on September 16th at the first place we ever did a live show, Noterco, and in Portland, Maine on September 18th. We've never done a show in Maine. You can find out more at ThisIsCriminal.com/live. I hope to see you very soon. The jury hearing George Denning's case was made up of 12 white men. It took them the whole day to come back with their verdict. And they decided that he was not guilty of murder. It was the charge that he was indicted on, but that he was guilty of manslaughter. And that he should be sentenced to seven years of hard labor at the Eddieville State Penitentiary. And that was that. People from all over Kentucky began writing letters and telegrams to the governor. Preachers, doctors, lawyers, grocers, college professors, housewives. And the mayor of Louisville all asked that George Denning be pardoned. One self-proclaimed ex-confederate wrote, "I know nothing of either Denning or Cahn, but it is sufficient to know that he was defending his home, be it ever so humble, it was his, his castle. A place too sacred for any outside interference." A notary public wrote, "An impartial jury could not be obtained from among a people so prejudiced that a battalion of soldiers backed up by a battery of cannons had to be placed around the jail to protect the prisoner. And that he was praying in this case, not for mercy, but justice, pure and simple." Newspapers published editorials calling for pardon two. The editor of the courier journal wrote, "If a man cannot protect himself and family from lawless bans of night raters, then indeed is the spirit of the mob supreme and law is a mockery." And the Padukasan said, "Sympathy is being aroused everywhere for the unfortunate man whose color alone denied him the right." In the eyes of the mob to protect his home and family. The governor requested the trial transcripts, and after reading them, decided to pardon George Denning. It was huge and unprecedented. Never before had a governor in the south and much less anywhere else pardoned a black man for the murder of a white man. The day before he announced the pardon publicly, he wired the warden at Eddieville Penitentiary so that George could get out of town before anyone heard the news. The warden gave George five dollars, a new suit and a train ticket to Louisville, a group of police officers escorted him to the station. When he arrived in Louisville, he was invited to speak at the church that had bought him the suit for his trial. Before he was done speaking, Usher started passing collection baskets down the pews. George left that night with almost $38, more than $1,000 today. He started telling his story at other churches and places like the Elks Club and the Odd Fellows Hall, where 300 people came to see him. A collection was taken up for him there too. He said he planned to use the money for a down payment on a house across the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where he and his family could live. He had also started talking about suing the white men who had come to his house that night and then set fire to it the next day. Not long after newspapers started reporting on the possibility of the lawsuit, George Denning was found badly beaten in the street. Somebody had cracked open his head with a brick and gouged out one of his eyes and had beaten him badly about the torso and had left him for dead in an alleyway. He did not die. He was rushed to the hospital, checked in under a misspelled last name so the story didn't get out that he had been assaulted for quite a few days in the local newspapers. But he recovered in the hospital. And then he filed that lawsuit. Had anything like this ever been done before? Not that I could find. I've found no similar case before this that a man had, that a black man had brought a civil case like this against what would have been his lynch mob, right? Yeah, it was unheard of. I can't imagine the level of courage that that would have taken in that time. George Denning's lawyer in the suit was a former Confederate soldier named Bennett Young. Bennett Young worked with George's wife and children to make a list of men who'd come to their house that night and some who would come the next day to help light the house on fire. Since the men had had their faces covered that night, George and his family didn't recognize all of them. But the men had identified themselves by choosing to testify against George and his murder trial. So Bennett Young added them to a list of defendants to be sued. The all-white jury met for an hour. When they came back into the courtroom, they announced their verdict. George Denning had won, and they were awarding him $50,000. People were blown away. The newspapers across the country reacted to this verdict with praise. The editor of the Mount Carmel Register in Illinois. This was in Kentucky, be it remembered. The Buffalo Express News in New York. This is one of the most notable triumphs of law and order ever credited to the record of Kentucky. I think everyone sort of realized that this verdict was a warning. Ben Montgomery says George Denning's lawsuit paved the way for others. A month later, a farmer in Kentucky brought a suit against a group of men who had tied him to a tree, beaten him, and told him to leave the area. And he wouldn't. And rather than do what they said, he grabbed his shotgun and marched into town and hired a lawyer and sued them. There are a couple of other examples that I could find really just in the months after, where black men and women were starting to use the federal court as a way to exact justice against people who had done them wrong. George Denning made a life for himself in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where his children went to school and learned to read and write. Something George had never been able to do. He died of a stroke in his mid 70s in 1930. He never recovered the full $50,000 that was awarded to him. The men who owed it to him claimed they just didn't have it. And he never went back to the 125 acres he owned in Kentucky. Have you ever gone to visit where the house was or the land? No, I have not, because I think it would be very emotional for me, but I am going to get down there, you know, it's just a matter of time. Anthony Denning, George Dennings, great grandson. He says George would have needed to go back to Kentucky to pay taxes on the land in person and thought he'd be killed if he showed up in person, so he never went back and ended up losing the land. Anthony says it's been divided up into smaller parcels. But I would love to have that land back. Anthony says that when he was growing up, he didn't know much about him. his great grandfather. He says nobody seemed to want to talk about him. That it felt like a family secret. When he did hear about him, it was only part of the story that George had killed a white man and that the family had had to leave Kentucky. As Anthony got older, he decided to see if there was more to it. He started asking older relatives what they knew and going to the library to try to find articles. I wanted to know where I came from. I just wanted to know who I was. It seems like a very brave thing of George to decide to sue this white mob at this time. Yes, that was unheard of. Not only to sue him but to win. You know, at the end of the day, you know, right from wrong and you fight for what you believe in. You fight for what you believe in. In his case, he fought me one. My siblings, my cousins, we'll fight to the nail. If we're right, we're going to fight to the nail. It's just how we were brought up. Do you have children? I do. I have three. Two boys and a girl. And three bonus children. Total six. Do you tell them the story of George? Oh, most definitely. All the research that I've done, I copied, made copies of all of it and I gave each of my children and I told them this is where you come from and you keep that paperwork and you pass this down to your children so they will know where they came from. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Zajiko, Lily Clark and Lena Silicin. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Seminetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at ThisIsCriminal.com and you can sign up for our newsletter at ThisIsCriminal.com/newsletter. Ben Montgomery's book is a shot in the moonlight, how a freed slave and a confederate soldier fought for justice in the Jim Crow South. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal ThisIsLove and Tiberese Mystery without any ads plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and criminal co-creator Lauren Spore talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com/criminal. We're on Facebook at ThisIsCriminal and Instagram and TikTok at Criminal_Podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media podcast network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.