Hale Infirmary / The Lynching of Willie Temple

Marker Text: Born in 1894, Willie Temple was the eldest of four children of Montgomery County farmers Lewis and Ella (Shorter) Temple. He worked as a dining car cook for the L&N Railroad. On the night of September 29, 1919, Temple and a friend were returning from a social event when they were approached by a third person and an altercation ensued. Montgomery patrolman J. J. Barbaree encountered the three and attempted to arrest them. Amidst the fray, Temple and the officer exchanged gunfire. Barbaree died of his wounds soon after. Willie Temple, also wounded, was later arrested at a coworker’s home on Cedar Street.

Police brought Temple to Hale Infirmary for medical care. In the early hours of September 30, a mob of white assailants entered the infirmary, overpowered the two police officers standing guard, and shot Willie Temple to death.

The lynching of Willie Temple came during a lengthy period of racial terror throughout America known as the Red Summer, which included at least sixty documented attacks by white mobs and hundreds of individual, violent acts. Temple’s murder occurred one day after the lynching in Montgomery of African Americans Miles Phifer and Robert Croskey, who were taken from police custody while en route to Wetumpka. A grand jury empaneled to investigate the three September lynchings brought no indictments.