The Lynching of Zeb Long

Marker Text: On the morning of September 24, 1906, the body of a 30-year-old Black man named Zeb Long was found hanging from a tree in East Point.Two days earlier, a mob of at least 5,000 white men and boys began terrorizing and violently attacking Black men, women, and children in the Atlanta area, inciting the four-day 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre. Law enforcement failed to intervene until the governor ordered state troops to regain control of the city. As police roamed East Point on the evening of September 23, they encountered Mr. Long and arrested him for “incendiary talk about the way white people were treating negroes.” The officers took Mr. Long to the small, wooden jail in East Point that was described by a local newspaper as a “flimsy” shack. The arresting officer took no further precautions, and around 5 am on September 24, a mob of at least 50 white men stormed the jail and kidnapped Mr. Long. Placing a rope around his neck, the mob dragged Mr. Long to a wooded area about half a mile west of the jail. Though Mr. Long “begged for his life,” the mob “promptly” lynched him and left his body hanging from a tree. A coroner’s jury determined on September 25 that Mr. Long had been killed by “unknown parties,” and no further investigation was made. No one who participated in the white mob violence that terrorized the East Point Black community and lynched Mr. Long between September 22 to 25 was held accountable for their crimes. At least 36 Black people were victims of racial terror lynching in Fulton County between 1865 and 1950, and at least 595 racial terror lynchings have been documented in Georgia during that time.