Burl Stephens
At 6am on the morning of Thursday, July 21, 1921, fifteen-year-old Burl Stephens sat unconscious on the tracks of the Texas and Pacific Railroad. His body was upright with his knees against his chest, arms laid across his knees, and his neck bent downward so that his head rested in his hands. The train whistle sounded as the southbound Katy to Dallas began its assent around a curve north of the railyard and again when Stephens was spotted on the tracks. R. L. Cole, the engineer who operated the Katy train that morning, applied the brakes as soon as he saw Burl but the train was traveling twenty-five miles per hour and Stephens became visible when he was only one train car length ahead. Despite the hiss of the brakes and the screech of the twice-sounded train whistle, Burl Stephens did not appear to wake before he was struck. “The body of the negro was thrown about ten feet into the air when the train, which had been traveling at about twenty-five miles per hour before the brakes were applied, struck him.”[2]
The train was stopped after impact and the train crew carried Stephens onto the train and back to the T&P station in Denton. Stephens received an initial medical examination and then was taken, alive, to the undertaking parlor where he died two hours after the train hit his body. The front left of Stephens skull was crushed from his eye to his ear and his jaw was broken in many places. His ribcage was crushed and several “ribs were torn loose.” Both his left arm and left leg were broken and there was a long gash in the skin over Burl’s left eye. Fifteen-year-old Burl Stephens spent the last hours of life unconscious, continually vomiting blood, in an undertaking parlor while onlookers waited for him to pass.[3]
These descriptions of the body of Burl Stephens were written in official government documents and in the newspaper. Burl’s body was brutalized by a train and the Denton Record-Chronicle found it more significant to print the details of his bodily horror than the story of his life. His death was voyeuristic and white citizens literally gazed upon his broken Black body for days thereafter for a glimpse of racialized horror. This spectacle was for the benefit of the empowered white class at the expense of a young minority man. I have elected to include the wounds Burl sustained within this paper to detail the way in which his body was treated, to highlight the grotesque entertainment gained by a privileged community, and, most importantly, to re-humanize a young man whose body was humiliated and stripped of its identity following his death.
The body of Burl Stephens laid in rest in Denton for two days following his death. Law enforcement estimated his age around twenty-four or twenty-five, ten years older than he was, and while members of both the Black and white communities viewed the body, they were unable to identify him. The only lead in the investigation appeared to be a note, tucked deep within Burl’s pocket, with the name and address of Hendrix Slater handwritten on a scrap of paper. Slater, a Black man from Pilot Point Burl had met the previous night, did not recall the name of the young man but insisted that their conversation surrounded finding jobs. Stephens took down Slater’s information with a promise to inform him if he found any work.[4]
The body of Burl Stephens was finally released for burial following the coroner’s verdict on Monday, July 25, 1921, stating, “unknown negro hit by an engine, one mile north of Denton, driven by R. L. Cole, engineer.” He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery on July 23, 1921, without a headstone, and his name listed in cemetery records as “Male Unknown.” Yet, his name was known. On the day he was struck by a train, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported the victim’s name as Burl Stephens. This information was attributed to the Denton press, who must have also known his name. Burl was the baby of the Stephens family. He was born in Grayson County, Texas, ten years after his nearest sibling, to Frank Stephens, a tenant farmer, and Mollie Woods, a homemaker. The Stephens family valued education and each of their six children attended school beginning at age seven. Burl’s father died in Burl’s early childhood and his brothers stepped in to help provide for the family while his mother worked as a laundress out of the home. He lived with his mother and two siblings on Jefferson street in Pilot Point, Texas, and was still attending school -- likely at Oakdale -- when he was killed by a train in 1921.[5]
Names carry significant meaning, especially within the Black community. Prior to emancipation, names were used to signify familial bonds and those bonds became especially important following forced family separations. Names also represent self-esteem and are intimately linked to our conceptualizations of self. To remove a name from an individual is stealing not only their identifiability, but also their inner self, as well as a deeper attachment to their family. This act of identity removal by calling Burl Stephens “Unknown Negro,” did damage beyond a simple factual omission. It was an act of violence.[6]
The coroner wrote the wrong date of death on Burl’s death certificate and the certificate itself was issued for “Unknown Negro.” This is evident of the lack of concern for Black bodies deceased, or particularly for Burl Stephens who had no prior interactions with the justice system. The Denton Record-Chronicle had access to the same information as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram but elected to leave Burl without a publicly acknowledged identity. His name was even reported on the United Press wire, and yet no acknowledgement was made, in any of the three stories run by the DRC of his name.
While his age was misrepresented in the Denton Record-Chronicle and his name omitted, somewhere in the northeast corner of the county a son and brother went missing. Why didn’t the family of Burl Stephens come forward? Why were officials so adamant to leave Burl nameless? Why did the Fort Worth press report the young man’s name but in his home county Burl Stephens remained an “Unknown Negro?”
When pressed about his interaction with Burl, Hendrix Slater emphasized that he was searching for work. This is a common thematic element in Klan narratives both in Denton County and across the nation. In the notes yet to be written for the lynchings that followed the death of Burl Stephens, a similar narrative echoes. “Let this be a warning to all negro loafers,” read one note, “get a job or leave town.” Another note read, “This should be a warning to all loafers and lawbreakers” signed “K.K.K.” It is worthy of note that the one identifying characteristic published of Burl Stephens -- his meeting with Hendrix Slater -- was co-opted and turned into a message, one which sounds an awful lot like the voice of the Ku Klux Klan.
The only anecdote included by the writing staff at the DRC was a note with Hendrix Slater’s name -- a man whom they tracked down in Pilot Point for comment while somehow avoiding any citizen of Pilot Point who knew the Stephens family and that Burl was missing. Furthermore, Burl’s family members did not feel comfortable coming forward to identify the body, though they must have privately suspected it was him. This fact stops the argument that Burl simply fell asleep on the tracks cold. If the death of Burl Stephens was an accident, why didn’t he wake to the train whistle? If his death was not contentious, why didn’t his family claim the body? Even community members did not recognize the young man when they visited his body. Black citizens of Denton County were performing an act that indicates a pressure, from an authority more fearsome than a mother’s grieving heart, to leave him unnamed. As a result, Stephens lies -- to this day -- in an unmarked grave in the city cemetery.
[1] “Negro’s Body Found,” Dallas Morning News, July 21, 1898, accessed December 11, 2018. Genealogy Bank.
[2] “Unknown Negro Hit By Train and Dies,” Denton Record-Chronicle, July 21, 1921, accessed October 25, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Negro Killed by Train,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 21, 1921, accessed February 27, 2019. Genealogy Bank; “Boyd Announces Coroner Verdict in Two Cases,” Denton Record-Chronicle, July 25, 1921, accessed October 25, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT).
[3] “Unknown Negro Hit By Train and Dies,” Denton Record-Chronicle, July 21, 1921, accessed October 25, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT).
[4] “Unknown Negro Hit By Train and Dies,” Denton Record-Chronicle, July 21, 1921, accessed October 25, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT).
[5] “Boyd Announces Coroner Verdict in Two Cases,” Denton Record-Chronicle, July 25, 1921, accessed October 25, 2019. Newspaper Archive (UNT); “Male Unknown,” Find-a-Grave, accessed December 10, 2019; “Negro Killed by Train,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 21, 1921, accessed February 27, 2019. Genealogy Bank; Fourteenth Census of the United States, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX), Schedule 1 (Population), accessed October 25, 2019. Ancestry; Twelfth Census of the United States, Denton County Clerk, Denton (TX), Schedule 1 (Population), accessed October 25, 2019. Ancestry.
[6] Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 (New York: Random House, 1976); S. L. Koole, et al, “What’s in a Name: Implicit Self-Esteem and the Automatic Self,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80, no. 4 (2016): 669-685.