On the night of 27 December 1895, at the Bill Curtis Saloon in St. Louis, Missouri, two black men, “Stag” Lee Sheldon and Billy Lyons, got into an argument. They were, supposedly, friends and drinking partners, but politics was about to come fatally between them: Sheldon, reputedly a pimp on the side, was an organizer for the Democrats, seeking to win over the black vote that had traditionally gone to the Republicans, for whom Billy Lyons recruited.