Waddell’s horse shouldered past him, and the priest went sprawling onto the oyster shells. He picked himself up and brushed himself off in a cloud of lime dust, grabbing men by the elbow, pleading for tolerance. But the sheer momentum of the mob carried him along and spit him out into the gutter, where he lay, stunned, watching hundreds of wild-eyed men stream past.

Seventh was a quiet residential street. The mob flowed noisily along the narrow, tree-shaded corridor between modest frame houses, moving fast. They trampled flower beds, scattered stray dogs, sent whole flocks of blackbirds exploding out of the twisted live oaks in black, frenzied bursts.

A Red Shirt fired his rifle into the air. Pretty soon, a dozen ragged shots cracked into the overhanging branches. A shotgun boomed twice, bringing down a rain of twigs and shredded leaves. Men hooted and yelled. A frightened horse kicked down a picket fence at the corner of Dock. At Orange Street, a team of matched grays pulling a landau reared up at the sudden appearance of the mob, and the carriage fetched up against a porch, its front wheel busted. Dr. Silas Wright, the mayor, peered out of the landau, clutching the useless reins in his white gloves, praying to go unrecognized.

The mob rushed through the neighborhood like a flash flood, carrying away everything in its path. White women stared out from behind curtains. Occasionally, men ran outside to join the mob, buttoning their flies as they ran, pulling on coats, their pockets bulging with shotgun shells.

Past Orange Street, the faces turned darker. Negro workingmen, sleeping after the late shift at the mills, were roused abruptly. They fled out their back doors barefoot, wearing only flannel union suits. Many of the women were already at work in the better homes across town. Children dived under beds, stared through the broken boards of slat fences.

By the time it roared past Williston School on Ann Street, the mob had swelled to almost a thousand men. Now, Waddell could see a church and a white building just in front of it that must be Free Love Hall. The sign proclaiming The Record Publishing Company still hung from the second floor. A face appeared in the upstairs window, then disappeared. Waddell reined up at a distance from the front door, men milling so close around him that he could not move his feet in the stirrups. All at once, he realized he was unarmed. The upraised barrel of a Winchester was bobbing out of the crowd on his right. He gripped the barrel, hauled the weapon out of the owner’s hands, and planted the butt on his thigh.

As the mob fetched up and surrounded the building, it went deathly silent all at once, as if its angry roar had been caused by the constant movement. Waddell looked behind him onto a sea of hats. Rifle barrels poked up among the hats, here and there a brickbat.