Lynching in America / Lynching In Leon County

Marker Text: In Tallahassee, Florida, between 1897 and 1937, racial terror lynchings of African Americans by white mobs created a legacy of violence, intimidation, and injustice that has not been fully acknowledged. At least four racial terror lynchings took place in Leon County, traumatizing the entire Black community. These lawless acts of violence were carried out after African Americans were accused of misconduct or crimes, often without evidence, denying them the right to an impartial investigation and fair trial. Instead, white mobs frequently pulled lynching victims from jails, often facing little to no resistance from law enforcement officers who were legally required to protect the Black people in their custody. In 1897, a white mob abducted Pierce Taylor from the county jail and hanged him from an oak tree before repeatedly shooting his lifeless body. In 1909, after Mick Morris was condemned to die in an unreliable trial that lasted less than a day, a white mob dragged Mr. Morris from the jail and lynched him. More than two decades later, in 1937, a white mob kidnapped two Black teenage boys, Richard Hawkins and Ernest Ponder, from the jail, and shot and killed them before dumping their bodies into a grove of oak trees along the Jacksonville highway. A note found next to the bodies
of Richard and Ernest read: “This is the beginning, who is next.” Not one was ever held accountable for committing these acts of racial terror.