Lynching in America / The Lynching of John Evans

Marker Text: Near this site on November 12, 1914, a white mob lynched a Black man named John Evans. During this era, Black people were burdened by a presumption of guilt that made them vulnerable to mob violence and lynching. Mr. Evans arrived in St. Petersburg from Dunnellon, Florida, and worked for a white man, Edward Sherman. When Mr. Sherman was later found dead and his wife was reportedly assaulted, suspicion was directed at Mr. Evans. Without formal charges, trial, or conviction of Mr. Evans, a white mob kidnapped him from a rooming house and tortured him in a wooded area before throwing him in the St. Petersburg Jail. The mob later abducted Mr. Evans from the jail and hanged him from a light pole located at the border between the city’s segregated Black and white communities. This public spectacle lynching was attended by an estimated 1500 white men, women, and children. As Mr. Evans struggled to hold himself aloft, a white woman shot him from her car, inciting the crowd to fire upon him for more than ten minutes. White mobs then terrorized the Black community for days in search of an alleged accomplice, Ebenezer Tobin. At least 170 Black residents fled their homes for safety. Mr. Tobin was later found and tried by an all-white jury, becoming the first person legally hanged in Pinellas County in October 1915. No one was held accountable for Mr. Evans’ lynching due to the impunity granted by racial hierarchy in St. Petersburg.