Марлоу, Оклахома: История, преступления и расовая напряженность

Marlow is a city in Stephens County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 4,385 at the time of the 2020 Census. Marlow is located 10 miles north of Duncan, Oklahoma, and 30 miles east of Lawton, Oklahoma. Founded near the Chisholm Trail, the city is named for Dr. Williamson Marlow, a physician from Missouri who settled at Wildhorse Creek with his family in 1880. His five sons, George, Charley, Alfred, Boone, and Llewellyn, were notorious outlaws collectively known as the Marlow brothers. Marlow has historically been a place for white supremacist actions against Black people, with instances such as the sundown town signs that were once prominently placed in the city and the 1923 murders of A. W. Berch and his porter, Robert Johnigan.

Marlow is located in northern Stephens County about 29 miles east of Lawton at the intersection of U. S. Route 81 and Oklahoma State Highway 29. Duncan, Oklahoma, the county seat of Stephens County, is ten miles south of Marlow. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.1 square miles (18 km2), of which 7.1 square miles (18 km2) is land and 0.14% is water.

The site that would become Marlow was first settled by Dr. Williamson Marlow, the father of the five Marlow brothers, when he and his wife, Martha Jane, moved from Missouri to the Wildhorse Creek area in Oklahoma in 1880.

From the end of the Reconstruction era until the mid 20th century, municipalities in different parts of the country enacted Jim Crow laws, which heavily restricted the rights of Black people. One of the worst racial violence incidents in American history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. In Marlow, prominent signs were erected publicly that stated, "Negro, don't let the sun go down on you here."

On December 17, 1923, A. W. Berch, a white hotel owner, and his Black porter, Robert Johnigan, were confronted and later murdered by an angry mob of Marlow residents at the Thompson Hotel. Berch had hired Johnigan as a porter 10 days before Johnigan decided to quit, citing racial tensions and a planned move to Duncan, but upon the request of J. L. Campbell, fired a fatal bullet at Berch's chest before twice shooting Johnigan, who died from his injuries at around 5:30 AM the following day. A preliminary hearing on January 2, 1924, before County Judge Eugene Rice included Marvin Kincannon, Elza Gandy, Bryon Wright, Fred Stotts, Ollie Lloyd, Homer Thompson, Ellis Spence, and Frank Cain as defendants. An appellate court stated that "Gandy was one of the chief instigators of the mob which was formed to run the negro out of town." and again for five days to visit his sick sister in Hobart, Oklahoma, on August 13, 1929. The story was featured in The Casper Daily Tribune, The Albany Decatur Daily, the Shreveport Journal, The Vancouver Daily Province, and the Norfolk Ledger Dispatch, among others. Elza Gandy died on December 9, 1949, in Caldwell, Kansas. Marvin Kincannon died at age 71 in July 1972. In 2019, Berch's maternal grandson, Albert Berch Hollingsworth, published a non fiction book about the incident titled Killing Albert Berch, which he spent five years researching.

As of the 2010 census, there were 4,662 people, 1,862 households, and 1,257 families residing in the city. The population density was There were 2,119 housing units at an average density of The racial makeup of the city was 87.2% white, 0.2% African American, 5.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 1.6% from other races, and 5.6% from two or more races. Males had a median income of $34,325 versus $29,21 for females.