This Day in History: 1908-03-27

Alabama Representative James Thomas Heflin shoots Louis Lundy, a Black man, claiming that Lundy cursed in front of a white woman while riding on a Washington, D.C. streetcar. The congressman claimed that Mr. Lundy’s alleged cursing was “raising a disturbance,” and received an outpouring of support from the white public and his fellow representatives after shooting Mr. Lundy through his neck. Heflin was never held accountable for shooting Mr. Lundy.