Gone South: The Lieutenant Governor Who Shot a Journalist – The Narciso Gonzalez Assassination

Podcast: Gone South
Episode Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Jed Lipinski
Guest: Jack Hitt

Overview

This episode investigates the 1903 assassination of Narciso Gonzalez, co-founder and editor of the State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, by Lieutenant Governor James Tillman. Through conversations with longform journalist Jack Hitt, host Jed Lipinski explores how the personal and political feud encapsulated the deep-seated tensions in South Carolina’s history—class resentment, white supremacy, journalistic courage, and the violent defense of power structures. The story is not just a historical true crime, but a lens on forces that still shape Southern and national politics today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Assassination: Setting the Scene

• [01:40] On January 19, 1903, as Narciso Gonzalez left the State newsroom to have lunch, he encountered Lieutenant Governor James Tillman outside the State Capitol in Columbia.
• [02:20] Jack Hitt: “They were ferocious enemies and had been for several years at this point.”
• As they passed, Tillman shot Gonzalez in the abdomen. Gonzalez collapsed, reportedly shouting, “Shoot again, you coward.”
• Gonzalez died four days later from peritonitis.

2. The Bitter Rivalry: Background of Gonzalez and Tillman

• [04:29] Jack Hitt describes South Carolina’s obsession with ancestry: “South Carolina really is a great state of Nepo babies. Everybody in the state has ancestors and claims them, discusses them, brags about them, or is ashamed of them.”
• Gonzalez was from a prominent yet financially ruined family—a mix of Cuban adventurers and Charleston aristocrats. His early success came from a telegraph operator-turned-journalist, first gaining fame covering black labor strikes.
• James Tillman was nephew to the notorious “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, champion of upstate, populist, white supremacist politics.

3. Class, Race, and Power in South Carolina

• The episode details the stark divide between Charleston’s aristocratic “bourbons” and the upstate’s resentful agrarian class:

  • [12:46] Jack Hitt satirizes the Charleston elite and upstate rivalry.
  • Ben Tillman’s ascension: He mobilized rural resentment to break Charleston’s dominance, forged by violence and anti-black terror like the Hamburg Massacre.
  • Tillman created the “Sweetwater Sabre Club”—one of many militias violently suppressing black voters ([10:12]).

• [11:41] Jack Hitt quotes Ben Tillman's chilling honesty about the Hamburg Massacre:

  “The leading white men Of Edgefield... had decided to seize the first opportunity that the negroes might offer them to provoke a riot and teach the negroes a lesson by having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many of them as was justifiable.”

4. Journalism vs. Power: The Press as Political Adversary

• Gonzalez’s newspaper, The State, was founded specifically to counter Tillman’s grip on state politics and to challenge white supremacy, championing black education, labor rights, women’s suffrage, and investigating corruption ([19:12]).
  • Jack Hitt on Gonzalez’s editorial voice: “He wanted everyone to know, yeah, that’s me. And he loved writing about everything South Carolina…” ([18:14])
  • Famous headlines: “Blown up and burned,” “Weighted in blood,” “Bullets in the bowels.”

5. Prohibition and Populist Hypocrisy

• The battle over alcohol crystallized the feud.

  • Tillman’s “solution”: Make the state itself the liquor seller, criminalizing homemade booze and unleashing violent constabulary squads ([20:06]).

  • Gonzalez called Tillman a “petty tyrant” whose goons could “invade homes, insult women, and even kill young men with zero consequences.”

  • [20:59] Jack Hitt: “There were these goon squads that were sort of running around the state...”

  • Tillman’s failed response to the Darlington Riot showed this policy’s dangers; his consideration of shutting down The State as a threat to public peace underscores the peril faced by journalists.

6. The Personal Turns Deadly: Gonzalez vs. James Tillman

• James Tillman, known as a “drunk and a gambler,” became a favorite target of Gonzalez’ scathing editorials.

  • The situation escalated when Tillman attempted to have Gonzalez duel him (which Gonzalez dodged) and then, upon Gonzalez blocking his entry into a local club, grew even more embittered.

• Gonzalez’s most damaging attacks alleged Tillman had stolen from the Ladies’ Monument Association of Edgefield, sacred work relating to burying Confederate dead ([29:16]).

  • Jack Hitt: “There could be no greater insult” in Edgefield than stealing from that group.

• After losing his 1902 gubernatorial run, James blamed Gonzalez’s “brutal, false and malicious newspaper attacks” for his defeat ([29:56]).

7. Trial, Acquittal, and Aftermath

• Trial rigged for Tillman:

  • Pro-Tillman judge and jury selection subterfuge using a “photographer” to read would-be jurors’ reactions to the accused and victim ([31:51]).
  • Prosecutor William Thurmond was a former killer acquitted with help from Tillman ([32:15]).

• Despite strong evidence—including witness testimony that Tillman vowed to “shoot Gonzalez down like a mad dog”—Tillman claimed self-defense, saying Gonzalez made a “menacing movement” ([32:56]).

  • [33:52] Jack Hitt: “You see this in a lot of these dueling or near dueling murder trials where the defense is, well, he started it because he said a bad word, and that is considered an assault... if it escalates from there, it’s totally defensible. And that was Tillman's claim, and he got off.”

• Tillman’s acquittal infuriated the state. Gonzalez’s friends installed a memorial in Columbia; James’s career ended, but Ben Tillman remained the state’s political boss and chief architect of Jim Crow laws for more than a decade afterward.

8. The Legacy

• The feud and its violent resolution shaped South Carolina’s power map for generations:
  • Charleston lost its central political status, ceding power to the upstate “woolcap boys” and their descendants.
  • [35:03] Jack Hitt: “The great grandchildren of these original Tillmaniacs, as Narciso called them, still riled up about those distant elites cheating them out of their fair [share].”
• The episode draws a line between these old resentments and the state’s enduring political realities.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [02:44] Gonzalez’s famous last words after the shooting:

  "Shoot again, you coward." — Narciso Gonzalez

• [04:29] On South Carolina’s obsession with family pedigree:

  “South Carolina really is a great state of Nepo babies.” — Jack Hitt

• [11:41] On the Hamburg Massacre:

  “The leading white men... had decided to seize the first opportunity... to provoke a riot and teach the negroes a lesson by... killing as many of them as was justifiable.” — quoting Ben Tillman

• [21:54] Ben Tillman’s view on the press:

  “My enemies have taken to their bosoms a viper in the shape of a newspaper which distills day by day poison into their system and will not let the fever subside... They try to sting me with abuse, slander and misrepresentation.” — Ben Tillman

• [23:13] The origin of a notorious nickname:

  “He wanted to jab his pitchfork into that bag of beef, Grover Cleveland. That’s Pitchfork Ben Tillman.” — Jack Hitt

• [28:10] On Gonzalez’s withering editorials:

  "I have nothing against Jim Tillman except that he is a man without character and therefore unfit for public office and both disgraceful and dangerous in it." — Narciso Gonzalez

• [31:51] On the rigged trial:

  “He would just leaf through a bunch of pictures. But in those pictures were photographs of Narciso Gonzalez and James Tillman. And he would watch their reactions... That’s how they selected the jury.” — Jack Hitt

• [33:52] On the logic of dueling-era “self-defense”:

  “The defense is, well, he started it because he said a bad word, and that is considered an assault... if it escalates from there, it’s totally defensible.” — Jack Hitt

Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:40 | The shooting: Gonzalez confronts Tillman | | 04:29 | South Carolina’s legacy of nepotism and family histories | | 07:37 | Gonzalez’s start as a telegraph operator and journalist | | 09:02 | Ben Tillman’s ruthless family background and origins | | 10:12 | The Hamburg Massacre and “Edgefield Plan” | | 12:46 | Class tensions: Charlestonians vs. upstate | | 13:50 | Tillman's anti-elite, anti-black agrarian movement | | 18:14 | Gonzalez’s journalistic style and fearlessness | | 20:06 | Tillman’s state-run prohibition and its unintended consequences | | 21:54 | Tillman's diatribe against Gonzalez’s “viper” newspaper | | 23:13 | Pitchfork Ben: National ambitions and grudging mutual respect | | 26:19 | James Tillman's political persona and rivalry with Gonzalez | | 29:16 | Gonzalez’s most damaging editorial: The Ladies’ Monument Association accusation | | 30:46 | The trial and peritonitis as a fatal outcome | | 31:51 | Jury selection subterfuge | | 32:15 | Strom Thurmond’s father as prosecutor—his deadly history | | 32:56 | Trial’s “self-defense” arguments | | 35:03 | Lasting legacy: Political power shifts in South Carolina |

Reflection & Tone

The episode blends sharp historical storytelling with a wry, sometimes sardonic tone—tempered by Jack Hitt’s deep knowledge and dry humor. The conversation pulls no punches about the violence, racism, and corruption at the root of South Carolina’s political culture, yet also finds a kind of tragic grandeur in these bitter rivalries, and in the press’s attempts to hold power accountable.

For listeners and non-listeners alike, this episode offers a vivid, insightful, and unsettling look at how the collision of class, race, journalism, and political power in the South can still echo today.