Lynching of Bootjack and Red

Marker Text: On April 13, 1937. Robert “Bootjack” McDaniels and Roosevelt “Red” Townes were lynched by a White mob after being accused of killing a White storekeeper in Duck Hill. Kidnapped from the Courthouse and chained to trees, the two men were tortured with a blow torch, after which McDaniels was shot to death and Townes was burned alive. Photographs taken were later printed in Time and Life magazines and were the first lynching images published nationwide. The Nazis later used them as propaganda against the U.S.