Lynching in America / Lynching in DeKalb County

Marker Text: Between 1877 and 1950, racial terror lynchings of African Americans by white mobs in DeKalb County created a legacy of violence and injustice that has not been previously acknowledged. On July 26, 1887, a black man named Reuben Hudson, Jr. was riding on a Georgia Railroad train when a conductor claimed that he resembled a man accused of assaulting a white woman in Redan. After the conductor turned Mr. Hudson over to local officers, he was sent to Redan the following day, where a mob of 100 white men seized and hanged Mr. Hudson from a tree. On April 3, 1892, a white mob from Lithonia pursued two black men who were accused of assaulting a white girl. Newspaper coverage was sparse and did not include their names. When the mob returned without the men, newspapers reported that it was “generally understood that they were lynched.” On August 21, 1945, Porter Turner, a black taxi driver who served white passengers, was found stabbed to death on a physician’s lawn in Druid Hills. Officials assumed the motive was robbery. However, almost a year later, an informant revealed that members of the Klavalier Klub – a branch of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan – were responsible for his death. Each of these lynchings terrorized the black community, and the perpetrators of these lawless acts were not held accountable. Memorializing these known and unknown victims reminds us to remain persistent and diligent in the pursuit of justice for all.