The killing of Postmaster Frazier Baker and his daughter Julia
22 February 1898The Lake City post office, Florence County, SC
A mob burned the Lake City post office with the postmaster's family inside, killing Frazier Baker and his infant daughter Julia, because a Black man had been given a federal appointment.
Frazier Baker was appointed postmaster of Lake City in 1897. A Black man holding a federal office in South Carolina drew immediate white resentment: the post office was boycotted, then burned, and Baker moved it into the building where he lived with his wife Lavinia and their six children.
Shortly after midnight on 22 February 1898 a mob of about a hundred men set that building alight and fired on the family as they ran out. Frazier Baker was killed in the doorway. His infant daughter Julia died in her mother's arms. Lavinia Baker and three more of the children were wounded. The survivors fled the state.
Because the post office was federal, the case went to federal court - a rarity. Ida B. Wells led a delegation to President McKinley demanding action. Eleven men were tried in Charleston in 1899; the jury deadlocked and no one was convicted. In 2019 the Lake City post office was named for Frazier Baker.
Sources
- February 22, 1898: White Mob Attacks Black Postmaster and Family in South CarolinaA History of Racial Injustice, Equal Justice Initiativecalendar.eji.org
- LynchingSouth Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studiesscencyclopedia.org