Martin Tabert

Martin Tabert (1899 – February 2, 1922) was a 22-year-old man from Munich, North Dakota who was arrested in December 1921 on a charge of vagrancy for being on a train without a ticket in Tallahassee, Florida. Tabert was convicted and fined $25 (equivalent to about one week's wages).[1][2] Although his parents sent $25 for the fine, plus $25 for Tabert to return home to North Dakota, the money disappeared in the Leon County prison system where Sheriff James Robert Jones earned $20 for every prisoner he leased out. He sent Tabert to work at the Putnam Lumber Company[3][4] in Clara, Florida, approximately 60 miles (97 km) south of Tallahassee in Dixie County.[2]

Martin Tabert
Martin Tabert (1921)
Born1899
Cavalier County, North Dakota, United States
DiedFebruary 2, 1922(1922-02-02) (aged 22)
Clara, Florida, United States
NationalityAmerican
Criminal charge(s)Vagrancy
Criminal penaltyFine of $25; later sentenced to convict leasing
Criminal statusdied in prison

In January 1922 Tabert was whipped with a leather strap by supervisor Thomas Walter Higginbotham, a "whipping boss", until he died.[5] Coverage of Tabert's killing by the New York World newspaper in 1924 earned it the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Governor Cary A. Hardee ended Florida's system of convict leasing in 1923, in part spurred on by the Tabert case and the resulting publicity.

The whip used on Tabert was called a "Black Aunty", a leather whip measuring 5.5 feet (1.7 m) in length and weighing 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg).[6][7][4] Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote a poem about the killing.[8]

References
  1. "WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR". Monthly Labor Review. 28 (5): 179–197. 1929 – via JSTOR.
  2. Staff (2013). "Timeline: 1921". Florida Department of Corrections. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  3. "On this day in Florida history - May 8, 1923 - Killings of work camp prisoners detailed in hearing". Florida History Network - Your one-stop source for celebrating and preserving Florida's past, today.
  4. Florida's Past Volume 3 Gene M. Burnett, Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL (1988) p. 122-25
  5. "Whipping Boss will Go Free", Associated Press, Jul 17, 1925, quoted in Miami News, from news.google.com
  6. Feb 7th 2016, Curtis Eriksmoen. "Did You Know That: Train ride, fine leads to death of ND's Martin Tabert". INFORUM.
  7. Miller, Vivien E. (2003). "The Icelandic Man Cometh: North Dakota State Attorney Gudmunder Grimson and a Reassessment of the Martin Tabert Case". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 81 (3): 279–315 – via JSTOR.
  8. Richard Godden; Martin Crawford (2006). Reading Southern Poverty Between the Wars, 1918-1939. University of Georgia Press. pp. 97–99. ISBN 978-0-8203-2708-2.
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