Leading up to Election Day on November 2, 1920, the Ku Klux Klan and the United Confederate Veterans held rallies and parades to discourage African Americans from voting. County officials arranged for the local notary public to be out of town, so that there would be no one to legally…
On January 30, 1934, Robert Johnson, a 40-year-old Black man, was lynched in Tampa. Two days earlier, Mr. Johnson had been wrongly arrested by the Hillsborough County constable after a white woman reported an assault. The next day, Tampa law enforcement officers confirmed Mr. Johnson’s innocence and cleared him of…
The era of Reconstruction following the Civil War opened with great promise in Gainesville but soon gave way to racial terror, unparalleled violence, and racial oppression. White mobs lynched at least eight Black people during this period: Harry Franklin 1868; Mr. Stephens 1868; an Unnamed Person 1870; Christopher Cummings 1870;…
White mobs lynched at least four Black men in Gainesville between 1877 and 1950 in complete disregard for the legal system and their constitutional rights. On February 17, 1891, a white mob abducted Tony Champion from his jail cell and hanged him from a tree near NE 6th Street. Just…
The lynching of Isaac Barrett did not occur in the City of St. Augustine. He was murdered in Orangedale, over twenty miles to the west of this location. Regardless, both communities are in St. Johns County and as such, this event is a part of our history. In order to…
Isaac Barrett, an African American tenant farmer, was lynched in St. Johns County, Florida, on June 5, 1897, after he was accused of assaulting the family of his white employer. According to press accounts, Mr. Barrett had a disagreement with the family about money owed to him, and the employer’s…