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Black Enclaves Of Violence: Race And Homicide In Great Plains Cities, 1890-1920, Clare V. Mckanna Jr.

Great Plains Quarterly

These killings, occurring three years apart in Coffeyville, Kansas, offer bookend images of interracial homicides in the Great Plains. In the first shooting, Charles Vann, a black man and the victim, had been drinking at Walnut and Eleventh Streets in the "tenderloin" district, a black neighborhood in Coffeyville. This region, near the railroad yards, provided entertainment for black customers and occasionally whites in saloons, brothels, and gambling parlors. William Rodecker, a white male horse trader, had just arrived from Missouri and started drinking heavily in this area. About 8 P.M. Rodecker accosted Vann at the corner of Twelfth and Walnut …