BEFORE WORLD WAR II, the Ku Klux Klan was an important social and political force in Key West. And Manuel Cabeza ran afoul of that force.

A native Conch and World War I veteran who was said to fear no one, Cabeza was deeply in love with a black woman, a well-known madam with whom he lived.

In those days a white man might have a black mistress, but he was supposed to keep it strictly a backstreet affair. Manuel lived quite openly with his lover and so, a week before Christmas, 1921, the Klan visited him, bearing tar and feathers. Manuel fought with them and, during the struggle, managed to rip the masks off several of the faces so that he would later be able to identify them. Tar-and-feathering was not only excruciatingly painful, it often resulted in the victim's death. But Cabeza was tough and by Christmas Eve was recovered enough to take his revenge.

He hired a taxi and began patroling Old Town, looking for the three men he had recognized. He caught up with William Decker, manager of one of Key West's large cigar factories on Duval Street. Cabeza fired a shot through the window of Decker's car, killing him.

The taxi rolled on. But at the corner of Whitehead and Petronia, a group of Klan members caught up with Cabeza. According to newspaper accounts, "gunfire was exchanged." There was a standoff until two sheriff's officers arrived and Cabeza agreed to accompany them to the county jail. The sheriff called in Marines from the naval base (how about that for backup help?) to protect Cabeza from the Klan, but by midnight dismissed them, believing that all was quiet on the Key West front.

Within an hour, five automobiles loaded with masked Klan members pulled up at the jail, and with pistols drawn, ordered the diminutive sheriff to let them in.

The Klansmen proceeded to the second floor of the jail and beat Cabeza senseless with blackjacks. Then they dragged him down to the street, tied him to the rear bumper of the lead car and paraded him through the streets of Key West.

Then they took him over to Flagler Avenue where they hanged him from a tree and riddled his body with bullets.

This was the gruesome sight that greeted hundreds of Key Westers on Christmas morning of 1921. No one was ever arrested.

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