LOCATION: Alabama; Texas
PERIOD: 1955-2015
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Frank Roy “Th’ Cunn’l” Cooper (1823-1865); Luther “Luth” Cooper (1827-1876); Charles “Charlie” Cooper (1918-2015); Lucas Keith Cooper (1897-1965); Luther “Sonny Boy” Cooper (1925-1965); Henry Barbour (1848-1924); Charles Thomas Barbour (1933-1955).
Charles “Charlie” Cooper (1918-2013) was the oldest remaining link to a Cooper family dispute tht had raged for 100 years. The patriarch of the family was Frank Roy “Th’ Cunn’l” Cooper (1823-1865), who fought and died in the Civil War. He’d owned a slave, Henry Barbour (1848-1924), who was treated not as a slave but as Frank Cooper’s partner and trusted aide. Cooper was an engineer, architect, and builder and Henry served as his construction foreman, overseeing all the work.
Frank Cooper was killed in the last battle of the war on April 14, 1865, a week after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, however word had not gotten to the western theater and fighting had continued. After Frank’s death, Henry managed the plantation, the various businesses, and supported Frank’s widow until she died. Henry Barbour also erected a memorial gravestone, with the inscription “placed in lasting remembrance of the love and gratitude he felt for his lost friend and former master.”
Frank Cooper had a half brother, same father – different mother, Luther “Luth” Cooper (1827-1876). Luth was nothing like Frank: intolerant, angry, resentful, and a racist – essentially the opposite of Frank Cooper. Three generations later, Luther’s toxic line of the Cooper family would produce Luther “Sonny Boy” Cooper (1925-1965) who would unwittingly be among the mob that lynched Henry Barbour’s great-grandson, Charles Thomas Barbour (1933-1955) on the night of July 10, 1955.
A decade later, 100 years to the day that Frank Cooper died in the last battle of the Civil war, Lucas Cooper, who knew the whole history of the Barbour family and their importance to the Coopers, fought and killed Sonny Cooper, his cousin, as well as dying himself in the struggle.
TO PAY THE DEBT
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)
“I’m old and ornery, got a lot to say;
Be ninety-seven on my next birthday.
Went to prison, twenty-five to life;
Sheriff claimed I shot my wife.”
“After forty I was paroled,
By then I was seventy years old.
That’s when I chose to make my exit,
Left Alabama for West Texas.”
“Frank & Luther Cooper were half brothers,
But were nothing like each other.
Frank, The Cunn’l, was Luther’s opposite;
Luther resentful, The Cunn’l tolerant.”
“Henry Barbour was Cunn’l Cooper’s slave;
Cunn’l treated Henry equal all his days.
My daddy Lucas knew the good Henry done;
And how a Cooper killed his great-grandson.”
The cards have been dealt,
The devil took the bet;
It’s way too late today …
To pay the debt.
“Luth’s great-grandson Sonny was no good;
Ran around in a sheet and hood.
I’m going back to 1955,
That July night Charlie Barbour died.”
“He was lynched by the Klan,
Just because he was a black man.
My cousin Sonny drank whiskey to forget;
Some secrets can’t be kept.”
“Daddy swore to avenge Charlie’s death,
And he did when he got the chance.
He met Sonny on the 14th Street bridge;
Daddy was both jury and judge.”
“They fought and both tumbled down,
Into rushing water muddy brown.
Two Coopers lived; two Coopers died;
April 14, 1965.”
The cards have been dealt,
The devil took the bet;
It’s way too late today …
To pay the debt.
© 2025 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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