Wyatt Outlaw: An Enduring Model of The Black Freedom Tradition

In recent years, I’ve taken to carrying around what I call my “gri-gri,” a West African term for a protective talisman that wards off evil. My gri-gri takes the form of a slim binder, containing copies of select records that document my ancestors’ journey in this nation. My ancestry in this country extends back centuries, since before this nation was even a nation, but like many African-descended people, finding documentation of my family’s presence in the country prior to Emancipation can be challenging, for obvious reasons. I’m luckier than most in this regard. Several of my ancestors that lived during the antebellum period either shared their stories with a print publication, published their own notices and articles, or took part in events that were significant enough to become part of the public record.

An example of one of these documents is a picture from the 2nd U.S. Colored Calvary Regiment that I keep in my gri-gri. One of my ancestors, Wyatt Outlaw, served in this unit during the U.S. Civil War.

Wyatt was born in 1820 into a family of slave-laborers who most likely lived on the plantation of George and Nancy Outlaw in Alamance County, North Carolina.¹ He was apprenticed into the craft of cabinetmaking, and may have obtained some literacy during his childhood. In 1854, he was manumitted upon the death of George Outlaw, and he carried on his trade in the local neighborhood until he left home in 1864 to enlist in the Union Army.² His unit saw action at Suffolk, at James River, and at the Siege of Petersburg.³

Upon returning home from the war in 1866, Wyatt founded the Alamance County Loyal Republican League, an interracial organization dedicated to providing local mutual aid and defending the civil rights of Freedmen.⁴ Wyatt’s leadership brought him to the attention of Gov. W.W. Holden, who commissioned Wyatt as a member of the Union League, on or around July 4, 1867.⁵ The next year, Wyatt was appointed and then elected as town commissioner of Graham, NC. In his capacity as town commissioner, Wyatt helped to organize and took part in armed anti-Klan night patrols, in response to rising Klan violence in North Carolina. At the time, the newly formed Klan had embarked on a campaign of organized terror aimed at driving the Freedmen and their Republican supporters away from participation in the political process.⁶

Wyatt’s prominence and courageous defense of Freedmen’s civil rights made him a target for Klan reprisals. On February 26, 1870, a group of Klan terrorists dragged Wyatt Outlaw from his home and hung him from an Elm tree near the Alamance County courthouse. An eyewitness to the incident described it as follows:

I was at home the Saturday night Outlaw was hung. I heard a noise outside, got up and went out. Saw a number of persons disguised, passed right by my house, going towards the court house, between seventy-five and one hundred, all riding. I went on up town to see what they would do. Got up near the court house, and met several gentlemen standing near Parson Long’s hotel. The Ku-klux then were on the oposite side of the court house from us. Soon a number came riding by us, and left town. Heard nothing more of them . . . . The next (Sunday) morning I went to the post office and was told that Outlaw was hung–then hanging to the tree at the court house. I went up and saw him–touched his foot with my cane–he was dead. A notice was pinned on him–“a warning to all guilty, both white and black.”⁷

Not incidentally, a Confederate monument stands squarely in front of Alamance County courthouse to this very day, an enduring tribute to savage determination to maintain white rule at all costs.

Soon after this incident, on May 21, 1870, the Klan murdered Republican state senator John W. Stephens at the Yanceyville courthouse, in retaliation for his support of Freedmen’s rights. This sequence of events led Governor Holden to declare that North Carolina was in a state of insurrection, and to send in militia to restore order. Although there were no armed confrontations, the militia commander did arrest over 100 suspected Klan members, including Adolphus G. Moore, a suspect in the murder of Wyatt Outlaw.⁸ This action was described by its opponents as a politically motivated strong-arm attack on law-abiding citizens, and they dubbed the emergency enforcement action the “Kirk-Holden War” in reference to state militia commander George W. Kirk and Governor W.W. Holden.⁹ Subsequently, fearing the spectre of renewed civil conflict, Kirk’s own political allies turned on him, and denounced his deployment of the militia as heavy-handed and poorly judged. Holden was obligated to release his prisoners, and the Conservative-Democratic party rode the issue to a landslide victory in the 1870 General Assembly elections.¹⁰

The newly-empowered conservatives called for Holden’s impeachment, and Rep. Frederick N. Studwick, himself a Klansman, filed eight articles of impeachment against the governor. During his impeachment trial, the defense called 113 witnesses who testified to the breadth and intensity of Klan activity in the state, but given conservative control of the legislature, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.¹¹ Holden became the first U.S. governor to be convicted and removed from office, for the crime of fighting Klan terrorism.

Although this particular incident represents a dismal outcome in itself, what has to be borne in mind is that it also represents a single battle lost in a struggle that has ebbed and flowed across generations, in which neither battle-hardened veterans nor everyday civilians have lost heart, in which people of goodwill have continually won their objectives in the face of powerful, determined, and barbarically cruel opposition. Moreover, the interracial solidarity that was forged in this violent crucible continues to endure, despite being subjected to continual strain from enemies and allies alike.

However, what should also be borne in mind is that these victories were not won through sheer moral force alone. The knowledge, skill, and vision required to win these victories was gained through patient and determined education, institution-building, and resource-management, as Wyatt Outlaw’s own life and actions exemplifies. Such practices are constitutive of what remains an enduringly vibrant and resilient Black Freedom Tradition. This tradition continues to be incubated and sustained in Black homes, churches, schools, businesses, and other bases and centers of Black community life.

Nevertheless, all too often, the Black Freedom Tradition in our nation is ignored, distorted, and misappropriated for reasons that range from silly and shallow to dangerous and vile, despite the fact that our nation’s survival has often depended upon it. Still, the tradition endures, in reverent memory, in deep ancestral bonds, and in day-to-day practice. Likewise the values that the Black Freedom Tradition embodies continue to endure: the willingness to stand united, to struggle, and if need be, to sacrifice. These are the values that define what it means to be a free people, and a free nation. I think all who claim otherwise will find that those values will not be so easily swept aside.

Notes

1. Carole Watterson Troxler, “‘To Look More Closely at the Man’: Wyatt Outlaw, a Nexus of National, Local, and Personal History,” The North Carolina Historical Review 77, no. 4 (2000): 411.
2. Ibid., 413.
3. “2nd United States Colored Cavalry Regiment,” in Wikipedia, December 12, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2nd_United_States_Colored_Cavalry_Regiment&oldid=1262568927.
4. Troxler, 416
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Testimony of John R. Fonville, in 2 TRIAL OF WILLIAM W. HOLDEN, supra note 1, at 1184.
8. Cornelia Gordon, “NO JUSTICE WITHIN THE LAW: THE MURDER OF WYATT OUTLAW AND ITS ABSENCE FROM THE LEGAL-HISTORICAL RECORD,” in Student Scholarship Workshop (Durham, NC: Duke Law School, 2014), https://law.duke.edu/events/student-scholarship-presentation-no-justice-within-law-murder-wyatt-outlaw-and-its-absence.
9. Jim D. Brisson, “‘Civil Government Was Crumbling Around Me’: The Kirk-Holden War of 1870,” The North Carolina Historical Review 88, no. 2 (2011): 124.
10. Ibid.
11. Brisson, 160-161.