They're Going to Kill Him!

The shocking story behind the Maury County Lynching makes "Try That in a Small Town" a crucial message for America

“Ella, I hate this! They are going to mob this boy they brought in…Go and tell the boy to pray, because they’re going to kill him.”

On the go? Listen to the story.

Watch the corresponding CounterCulture episode: https://rumble.com/v34rf6w-theyre-going-to-kill-him-the-story-behind-aldeans-song.html

These chilling words bring us back to 1927 in Columbia, Tennessee at the Maury County Courthouse—the location of the controversial 2023 video for Jason Aldean’s song, “Try That in a Small Town.”

The controversy has brought the race-obsessed Left and the First-Amendment-hugging Right in America to yet another cultural head-on collision.

2023: A ‘heinous song calling for racist violence…and vigilantism’

A July, 2023 New York Times article reported, “Country Music Television has pulled a music video for the song Try That in a Small Town, by the country music superstar Jason Aldean, which was filmed at the site of a lynching, amid accusations that its lyrics and message are offensive. The video, released on Friday, was shot in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., a site known for the 1927 mob lynching of Henry Choate, an 18-year-old Black man, and is interspersed with violent news footage, including protests…”

Ironically, the true story of the brutal murder and lynching of Henry Choate validates the lyrics and message of Aldean’s song

“State Representative Justin Jones of Tennessee, a Democrat,” the report continues, “condemned the song on Twitter, describing it as a ‘heinous song calling for racist violence’ that promoted ‘a shameful vision of gun extremism and vigilantism.’

As usual, the Legacy Media and the race baiters haven’t told you the whole truth, so FreedomTalk will.

I agree that the Maury County Courthouse setting and the news clips evoke racist violence and vigilantism—shameful, heinous acts that should offend every decent person. The horrendous murder of 18-year-old Henry Choate should be condemned by all decent, conscientious people—regardless of skin color or political affiliation—and indeed it was just after it occurred.

Ironically, the true story of the brutal murder and lynching of Henry Choate actually validates the lyrics and message of Aldean’s song, and the BLM imagery that was recently edited out of the video should be added back in.

Back in 1927, a violent mob did “try that in a small town,” and “good ol' boys, raised up right” took a stand against them. Good people of Maury County, black and white, told the lynch mob not to “cross that line,” because they truly believed as they do today that “around here, we take care of our own.”

Such acts of violence were not uncommon at the time, and many good people—both black and white—paid for their resistance against the racist Democrats with their lives.

Yes, Henry Choate was murdered by Democrats.

Nov. 11, 1927: Here’s what happened

According to the Tennessean newspaper, sixteen-year-old white girl Sarah Harlan was waiting for her school bus on a lonely stretch of road near Columbia. A black male allegedly tore her clothing and attempted to shoot her. Harlan described being hit on the forehead with the butt of the man’s pistol as he attempted to strangle her.

Harlan allegedly scratched her assailant’s face and bit his finger during the attack. She then cried out that her brother was on his way and, “now I guess you’ll get it,” she said. The assailant fled.

Henry Choate had apparently just arrived from out of town to visit his grandfather, Henry Clay Harlan (no relation to Sarah), when a posse led by a pair of bloodhounds, George and Queen, arrived and promptly arrested the teen.

Maury County Sheriff Luther Wiley alleged that Choate had changed his blood-spattered shirt and hid a .22-caliber pistol; he had a wound on his finger resembling a bite mark and witnesses had seen Choate near the attack site when it occurred. The Authorities told the Tennessean Choate’s grandfather had denied his grandson’s alibi that he was helping him gather corn when the attack occurred.

The (white) girl’s mother pleaded with the mob to “spare the Negro for trial”

However, Sarah was unable to positively identify her alleged assailant. “Confronted with Choate this afternoon, the girl said he resembled her assailant but she was unable to identify him positively,” the newspaper reported. But like so many racially charged incidents today, the initial reports were murky and unconfirmed.

By this time, a mob had congregated, eager to lynch the young man, but Sarah’s mother wasn’t having it. She pleaded with the mob to spare Choate’s life because her daughter had not been able to confirm him as the attacker. She “asked them to spare the Negro for trial,” according to the Tennessean.

In spite of the mother’s entreaties, the mob attempted to seize Choate by force, but he’d already been taken to the county jail. At the jail, Sheriff Wiley gave his wife the key to Choate’s cell.

“Ella, I hate this,” Mrs. Wiley told the jail’s black cook, Ella Grant. “They are going to mob this boy they brought in…Go and tell the boy to pray, because they are going to kill him.”

“Boy,” Grant told Choate, “Mrs. Wiley says you better pray, because the mob is coming to lynch you.”

“I know they are,” responded Choate.

“I am not going to see an innocent boy hung!”

The mob arrived at the jail around 8 p.m. Friday night, whereupon the sheriff told them that Choate would get a trial on the following Monday. Wiley’s wife, meanwhile, hid the key and pleaded with the mob not to kill the young man.

“You all go away!” she said. “I am not going to see an innocent boy hung!”

But Mrs. Wiley handed over the key, which she had hidden behind a laundry bag, after a mob member threatened to blow up the jail with dynamite. She was terrified.

When a deputy sheriff opened the cell, a member of the mob yelled, “Come out, Choate,” and someone from the crowd struck the teen on the head with a sledgehammer, killing him.

The body of Choate was tied to the bumper of a car and dragged by the neck about 300 yards to the courthouse.

Several Christian ministers and Tennessean editor, James Finney attending a nearby American Legion Armistice Day banquet—ostensibly unaware that the teen was already dead—attempted to intervene, but were repulsed by the mob.

“Go ahead back to your banquet!” a member of the lynch mob shouted, according to the newspaper. “You’re having your fun over there. Now let us alone while we have ours out here.”

The body was hanged by the patriotic bunting over the balcony of the courthouse. The following day, Willis White, a police officer, requested that a funeral home “come and get him.”

More than two weeks after the lynching, a Maury County grand jury declined to prosecute anyone who participated in Choate’s killing.

“In this matter, we report that we are unable to find evidence upon which to return a true bill against any person participating in this affair, or in any way responsible for the death of the Negro,” the grand jury wrote in a statement to Judge W.B. Turner, according to the Tennessean. “The witnesses examined who would be expected to be able to identify the parties actively engaged in the offense are unable to identify any of those who took part.”

Whether the grand jury cowered to threats from the perpetrators, or engaged in a cover-up to protect friends, Finney condemned the lynching in the newspaper as a heinous act that the city should not ignore.

“Executions by mobs are murder, nothing more and nothing less,” Finney wrote, adding “Maury County had been disgraced.”

By every account, this was indeed a heinous murder that put a stain on Maury County. But who was responsible? Without a doubt, this and other atrocities perpetrated during that time, were the work of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

The Cambridge Guide to African American History reveals a number of facts about this vile group formed in 1865 as a “secret lodge” by former Confederates in Pulaski, Tennessee: “The Invisible Empire” of the KKK, which “has been and remains committed to white supremacy in America.”

Will the true racists please step forward

The truth about the Maury County Courthouse incident, and “systemic racism” as a whole presents a very different picture than do the current-day media hype and outrage expressed at a song having nothing to do with race. (Quotes italicized below are from The Cambridge Guide to African American History.)

1. The KKK were Democrats the party utilized to persecute Republicans and suppress black freedom.

Klansmen, beside other diehard groups, violently resisted Reconstruction. Still defending the South, they fought Union Army occupation, Republican governments, and blacks’ freedom. Donning hoods and using secret titles, they took an oath to defend Christianity, the Constitution, and the white race, especially their women's purity. Loyal to the Democratic Party, the Klan enlisted men and women from all classes.

They murdered 1,000 black and white Republicans in Louisiana alone.

The KKK murdered blacks, but also indiscriminately killed Republicans regardless of race.

Targeting Union Leagues (freedmen's political clubs), night riders harassed and often killed black and Republican voters and officeholders, burned black churches and schools, intimidated teachers, and stole elections. In the 1868 elections, alongside Knights of the White Camellia, they murdered 1,000 black and white Republicans in Louisiana alone. After its investigation, Congress passed the Ku Klux Act (1871). But undermanned Union garrisons rarely stopped the Klan's plunder. Its terrorism during the election of 1876 hastened Reconstruction's end.

3. The KKK Democrats stole elections.

Between 1877 and 1910 the KKK fueled Democrats’ push to establish one-party rule and Jim Crow. A coalition of Democrats, Klansmen, Red Shirts, Rifle Clubs, and White Leagues targeted freedmen and their allies, utilizing ballot fraud, intimidation, and murder.

The Democrats’ “defeat of populists” was “by ballot-rigging and terror.

4. A populist movement of allied black and white citizens came together for reform; the Democrats crushed it.

Some 1,751 blacks were lynched in southern and border states ca. 1882–1900 as black and white farmers’ alliances and the Populist Party coalesced for reform. Defeat of populists by ballot-rigging and terror enabled Democrats, as the Supreme Court instituted the “separate but equal” rule, to enact Jim Crow.

4. The Democrats were anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant.

The system disfranchised and terrorized blacks; it also persecuted Jews, Catholics, and nonwhite immigrants.

5. This institution, created and promoted by Democrats continued to be active, and not just in the South.

Klan people promoted white racism in the twentieth century. Early on they enlisted members with The Birth of a Nation (1915), a film glorifying the Klan's bloody defeat of Reconstruction. By the mid-1920s, the second KKK claimed several million members in more than a dozen states. Affiliates were strong in the Midwest (being more anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant there) than in the South. State and local Klans frequently attacked progressives prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which ensured the right to vote.

Clearly this battle, despite what Democrats continue to falsely portray, has never been a strictly racial issue. Republicans and Populists are not to blame, and ostensibly many rank-and-file Democrats rightly condemn racist violence. In truth, all decent people have a common enemy, regardless of party affiliation, and it’s time we expose that group of antagonists.

The “Invisible Empire” of the KKK did not die, it simply changed its tactics in order to survive the reforms of the Civil Rights movement. While there are well-meaning and sincere people in the Democrat party, are we to believe that the elite leadership descended from generations of committed racists have reformed in a few short generations? Hardly.

“Try that in a small town,” is a song condemning the mob violence that is intrinsic to pure democracies

The truth is that the black-white populist movement didn’t die either, despite intimidation, murder and election fraud by the Democrats. Some of them marched together with Martin Luther King, Jr. They bled and went to jail together, all in the name of an ethic resembling “around here, we take care of our own.”

The racist KKK legacy continues to be, as it was nearly 100 years ago, the enemy of the Populist movement, not its birthplace or its home.

The elite use the chaos of mob rule to propagate their own interests and maintain control

As I point out in a recent article, America is currently controlled by an oligarchy—which we refer to as, “the elite.” This cabal watches out for its own interests at the expense of the American people. They operate in shadows, paying lip service to the values of “Democracy” while simultaneously sowing racial division and mob-driven chaos in order to hold onto their ill-gotten power.

“The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro” said Malcolm X. “Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative.”

And that includes their appropriation of Black Lives Matter mobs to plunder and destroy, after which the Democratic elite showed their “true colors” by abandoning BLM. (See How The Democratic Party Hijacked Black Lives Matter.) Of course, there have been many sincere people taking part in BLM who did not participate in the violence, intimidation, and murder depicted in Aldean’s original video. There were “many fine people on both sides,” you might say.

As long as these evil elites can keep us at one another’s throats, and frame everything in terms of race and intersectional victimhood, they maintain their stranglehold. “Divide and conquer” is a daily agenda for them.

Aldean’s song is a condemnation of the mob mentality that elites have used over the course of history to intimidate, murder, and steal elections.

The same elites who have used both KKK and BLM to their advantage, now have the Administrative State (FBI, DOJ, etc.) playing defense for their corruption, protecting their interests, convincing us that “this time” the war (in Ukraine now) is just…and not about them making bucketloads of money as the Military-Industrial Complex has for generations.

Reverting to their roots, the Democrat-Elite-controlled FBI has been caught targeting Catholics just as they did 100 years ago.

The leftist elite Democrats (with the help of “RINOs”) have mastered the devious tactic of projecting their own actions and malign intentions onto the Populist movement, just as they have since Henry Choate was murdered at the Maury County Courthouse.

But in recent years, this oligarchy of the elite has been exposed and the Populist movement—consisting of a true diversity of skin colors, religious beliefs, and life choices—is rising like a phoenix.

Jason Aldean’s song is a condemnation of the mob mentality that elites have used over the course of history to intimidate, murder, and steal elections. These elites exist in both major parties, though seemingly most prevalent in the Democratic side of the “Uniparty.”

Just as their KKK predecessors did 100 years ago, the elites persecute black Republicans, and other groups they hate.

Donald Trump and others are committed to destroying those who would destroy the Republic, and that is why the elite Democrats and Left are constantly attacking those who would “make America great again.”

As the saying goes, “you will know a tree by its fruits.” Trump’s Populist administration produced record jobs and prosperity for the black community and other minority groups. The elite Democrats, on the other hand, have fomented racial division, chaos, and hatred while blaming the consequences of their schemes on “white supremacists,” which of course they say include people like Larry Elder and Candace Owens (and other black personalities), Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro (Jews), Dave Rubin and Brandon Straka (gay men); Riley Gaines and Kelly Walker (white Christians).

Just as their KKK predecessors did 100 years ago, the elite Democrats persecute black Republicans, and other groups they hate—only now, they’ve learned to blame the victims.

Interestingly, Reuters revealed that more than 100 U.S. leaders—lawmakers, presidents, governors and justices—have slaveholding ancestors,” but, “Few are willing to talk about their ties to America's ‘original sin.’” The report adds that every living former U.S. president is descended from slave owners—except Donald Trump.

Is it possible that 100 years later, the members of slave-owning, negro-hating families continue to hide skeletons in their closets? Again, according to Cambridge University, “The Invisible Empire” of the KKK “has been and remains committed to white supremacy in America.” This cabal operates in broad daylight, under the guise of compassion; Malcolm X saw right through it, and it’s time all of us wake up to it as well.

The Democrats talk about “defending democracy” because they know that a pure democracy is the shortest path back to the absolute oligarchic control they so love. They do not want democracy because they truly care about the “little people,” they want it because they understand that the mob rule of pure democracies always devolves into chaos, and chaos presents the opportunity for tyrants to seize control by imposing order, often by violent means.

The greatest danger to a representative republic is a democracy. Pure democracies have always and descended into mob rule, as witnessed by the history of Athens. Aristotle rightly observed about 2,500 years ago that the elite (the oligarchy) use the chaos of mob rule that’s the inevitable outgrowth of democracy to propagate their own interests and maintain control. Democratic mob rule negates the rights of minorities and inevitably and predictably ushers in tyranny. This has been demonstrated again and again over thousands of years.

Whether it be KKK Democrats 100 years ago, or Democrat-manipulated BLM rioters (many of whom have been white progressives), the true white supremacist machine continues to push violent mob chaos in their desire to hold onto their elite power structure.

I’ve spent a good deal of time in Maury County, and I do not believe racism is a pervasive issue here; nor do I think these people bear the guilt and remorse of acts done nearly a century ago. I’ve spoken to a number of people of various racial backgrounds who celebrate Aldean’s song as a paean to just Law and peaceful Order.

Jason, sing on. Put the 21st-Century iteration of the KKK that used and abused the BLM mobs back where it belongs: on the wall of the Maury County Courthouse where a previous Democrat-led mob murdered a young black man in cold blood, despite the attempts of “good old boys (and girls)” to put “Try That in a Small Town” to good use in standing up to evil.

The “secret society” of the Democratic Party doesn’t want their past catching up with them because it is a Rosetta Stone revealing the evil schemes they continue to practice today.

P.S. I will soon be discussing this topic on FreedomTalk’s new CounterCulture show with rapper and songwriter, Nick Nittoli.

Kelly John Walker, M.S.

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