Lynching in Newton County

Marker Text: On October 10, 1908, a mob of white people brutally shot, tortured, and lynched Frank Johnson, Dee Dawkins, and William Fielder near Hickory, Mississippi. On October 8, a Black sharecropper named Shep Jones had a disagreement about his work schedule with his white employer. The white planter assaulted Mr. Jones, leading to an altercation that ended with the white man’s death. Mr. Jones fled Newton County, aware that Black people were not believed to have a right to defend themselves against white people and that he was at risk of being lynched. For the next two days, an angry white mob terrorized the entire Black community in a manhunt for Mr. Jones. The mob destroyed property owned by Black people, burned a Black church and meeting lodge near Gardlandville, and threatened Black families. On October 9, the mob hanged Mr. Jones’s father-in-law, William Fielder, from a tree near his home. The next morning, unable to locate Mr. Jones but refusing to be denied a lynching, the mob lynched Dee Dawkins and Frank Johnson, two Black men who were targeted merely for being associated with Mr. Jones. Many Black people were so traumatized by the violence that they fled Newton County. White elected officials and law enforcement failed to hold anyone accountable for the destruction of Black property or the lynchings.