On February 2, 1937, a large mob of white people brutally lynched a Black teenager named Wes Johnson near Headland. The mob abducted Mr. Johnson from the Henry County jail in Abbeville and riddled his body with bullets before hanging him from a tree. Mr. Johnson had been arrested two…
On March 21, 1890, a white mob lynched a 16-year-old Black boy named Robert Mosley near Meridianville. Prior to this death, Robert earned a living working as a farm laborer. On March 20, a white woman related to Robert’s employer accused him of sexual impropriety. News of the unscrutinized accusation…
Lowndesboro, AL—Enraged whites, jealous over the business success of a Negro are believed to be the lynchers of Elmore Bolling. Bolling, 39, was found riddled with shot gun and pistol shots 150 yards from his general merchandise store. It is believed that more than one person figured in the murder…
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…
On April 19, 1904, Reuben Sims, a Black man, was lynched by a white mob in Little River, Alabama. Beginning on April 18, the mob terrorized local Black residents in a manhunt for Black men after a white man was found dead. Mr. Sims was seized and whipped three times…
On March 21, 1981, 19-year-old Michael Donald was abducted, beaten, killed and hung from a tree on this street by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He was randomly selected in retaliation for an interracial jury failing to convict a black man for killing a white Birmingham policeman. The lynching…