Across the street from this marker, two African American men were lynched by a white mob on August 31, 1889. Their names are unknown. During this era, deep racial hostility in the South permitted suspicion and presumptions of guilt against black people to flourish without serious scrutiny. After a white…
On June 17, 1890, Tom Redmond, an African American man, was killed during a violent confrontation between a group of white and black men in Brookside, a town located 13 miles north of here with iron mines owned by the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. On June 16th, a group…
The jail in Selma, Alabama, was a repeated site of racial terror lynching and violence that devastated the African American community. In February 1895, police arrested Willy Webb in Waynesville and moved him to the jail in Selma under threat that local whites planned to lynch him. Hours after Mr….
On December 7, 1896, William Wardley, a Black man, was lynched by an armed mob of white Irondale residents. That day, Mr. Wardley, along with two companions, attempted to purchase apples from a local grocery store. The merchant refused to accept Mr. Wardley’s money because he assumed it was counterfeit….
Terror lynching in Tuscaloosa County went unaddressed for decades, devastating the African American community. In December 1889, Bud Wilson was taken from police by a white mob that hung and fatally shot him after he was alleged to have entered the home of a white woman. This lynching followed that…