Lynching in America / Racial Terror Lynchings in Newberry

Marker Text: After the Civil War, emancipated Black people in Alachua County bought their own land and established a rural farming community from Jonesville to Newberry with farms, churches, a school, and local businesses. Many white residents were violently resistant to racial equality and terrorized Black people to enforce Jim Crow segregation and racial hierarchy. On September 1, 1902, a mob of 300 white men seized two Black mine workers, Manny Price and Robert Scruggs, from law enforcement, hanged them and riddled their bodies with bullets. Fourteen years later, in August 18 and 19, 1916, white mobs including a state senator, a local sheriff, community leaders, and well-known citizens lynched six Black men and women from Jonesville after a Black farmer was accused of mortally wounding a Newberry constable. A mob abducted Jim Dennis from his home and shot him to death, and another mob hanged Bert Dennis, Mary Dennis, Stella Young, Andrew McHenry, and Reverend Josh Baskin here in “Lynch Hammock.” These events are often referred to as “The Newberry Six” lynchings, but oral history suggests that a Black man named Dick Johnson and two unidentified Black victims were also lynched during this bloody weekend. Seven years later, during the racial terror of the Rosewood Massacre, a white mob abducted Abraham Wilson from jail on January 17, 1923 and also lynched him here in “Lynch Hammock.” In none of these lynchings was anyone held accountable.