[Note: Each group of entries cannot exceed 2,000 words, so the timeframes are structured accordingly. The “Jim Crow Violence” story is made up of six entities, and each one has a different photograph collection. The number in the [bold bracket] is linked to its respective entry in the text and, where possible, the entry and the image appear on the same page. The number in the [bold bracket] is linked to its respective entry in the text and, where possible, the entry and the image appear on the same page.]
Race Riots and Lynchings
Delaware (Wilmington, November): The Price family were African American suspects in the robbery of a Wilmington gun store. The guns, in turn, had been pawned throughout the city. While raiding the Price house, Patrolman Thomas L. Zebley was killed and Officer Harry F. Pierce was shot twice in the lungs. After two black men were accused of killing a white policeman, a white mob of about 300 men went on the hunt to find them. The police intervened, and after overtaking the mob, moved the black suspects to a jail in Philadelphia for safe-keeping, and the mob, not being able to break into the jail, turned their anger on the black community.
Florida (Mulberry, August): A riot began between the races at Prairie Pebble Phosphate Company in Mulberry, Florida. Troops were called in after a baby and two others were injured. (Jacksonville, September): In a riot mirroring many others that summer, a white mob seeking justice over an attack on a white girl broke two prisoners out of jail. The men were not the original criminals sought, but rather just black men in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mob riddled them with bullets, dragged their bodies behind a car and lynched them in front of a crowd. (Lake City, November): Sam Mosely was found dead, hanging from a tree, in Lake City, Florida, assumed to be dead at the hands of a mob. He was thought to have attacked a white woman.
Georgia (Millen, April): The earliest race riot that occurred that spring was in Carswell Grove near Millen where 6 people (2 white officers and 4 Black men) were killed at a local church. The instigators were either Blacks or local white bootleggers. (Warrenton, April) After Benny Richards, a Black farmer, killed his ex-wife and wounded his sister in law, a posse of hundreds of citizens and bloodhounds chased him down rather than let the police and legal system decide his fate. (Milan, May) While several riots that summer were related to the perceived need to protect white women against Black men, this case was reversed. An African American man, Berry Washington, was trying to protect teen girls in his neighborhood from white sexual predators and killed one of the men in the process. He was broken out of jail and lynched by a mob of 75-100 men, led by the local Baptist minister. Mobs of white citizens continued the violence, destroying Black homes and businesses. (Dublin, July): Eli Cooper was lynched in the vicinity of Dublin for being a rumored ringleader among black activists. A mob shot him 50 times and threw his body in a church and lit it on fire. The mob then made its way throughout town burning Black owned churches and lodges. Locals raised money for a reward for capturing the culprits, and for rebuilding the churches. (Macon, October): Paul Jones, a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman, was taken from police custody and lynched by a mob. (Putnam County) From May 27 until May 28, arsonists burnt down at least six Black churches and multiple Black community buildings in and around Eatonton. The Wheeling Intelligencer claimed the buildings were burnt down because of a "minor racial clash at Dennis Station" when a Black man was refused a bottle of soda water. (Milledgeville, Georgia) A few miles from Eatonton (Putnam County), white and Black mobs armed themselves and roamed the town when an argument broke when the white and black schools choose the same colors. There was a lot of tension in the Black community as white soldiers were lauded upon their return while Black soldiers, who also fought in WWI, were ignored. (Jenkins County) The riot took place on April 13 when a series of misunderstandings involving Joe Ruffin, one of the wealthiest Blacks of Jenkins County, who was on his way to participate in a celebration at the Carswell Grove Baptist Church. It led to two white officers being killed. In retaliation, the local white community formed mobs and ravaged the Black community, burning black community buildings, the church, Ruffins car and three Black Masonic lodges. They then lynched two of Ruffin's sons. Ruffin was tried and convicted but a new trial freed him and he lived out his days in South Carolina.
Illinois (Chicago, July): A dispute over color line boundaries in Lake Michigan led to a young Black swimmer named Eugene Williams being stoned to death by a white mob. With racial tensions already high as competition for jobs and housing heightened, the riot spread to clusters throughout Chicago. At least 38 people died, and over 500 more were injured. Countless Black owned homes and businesses were burned in the process by whites. (Video) (Video) (East St. Louis) These riots were a series of outbreaks of labor- and race-related violence by White Americans who murdered between 40 and 250 African-Americans in late May and early July. Another 6,000 blacks were left homeless. The events took place in the industrial city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, directly opposite the city of St. Louis, Missouri. (Video)
[22] [26] [28] [31]
Kentucky (Corbin, October): The town decided to forcibly remove all the Black residents in town almost overnight, resulting in violent clashes between the races and one death. Riots throughout the summer were followed by Blacks being forced out of town or fleeing to other nearby cities for safety.
Louisiana (Bogalusa, August): After a manhunt, a white mob of over 1,000 men dragged Black soldier Lucius McCarty around Bogalusa behind a car and then lynched him in the lawn of the woman he was said to have assaulted. (Bogalusa, November): Tensions had been high all summer after a group of white labor union organizers came to town to organize the African American timber-workers at the Great Southern Lumber Company. [29] Unrelated to the riot that occurred earlier in the summer, the fall riot escalated so quickly that troops were called in for backup. Four union organizers were killed. The events are now known as the Bloody Bogalusa Massacre.
Maine (Orono, April): In late April, two African American brothers, Roger and Samuel Courtney, both students at the University of Maine, were hunted down by a mob of hundreds of students, led back to campus with nooses around their necks, and forced to tar and feather each other’s naked bodies. No arrests were made, and the incident was kept out of local press and university histories.
Maryland (Annapolis, June): Another riot between Black and white servicemen, joined by residents in Annapolis, occurred over the threat of each race against the other's women. (Baltimore, September): A riot in Baltimore started by white Navy bluejackets against an entire Black neighborhood was quickly quelled by police.
Mississippi (Vicksburg, May): Several riots that summer were started by large white mobs breaking prisoners (yet to be convicted) out of jail to lynch them. In Vicksburg, 1,000 white rioters broke Lloyd Clay out of jail, hung him, and burned him in the city center as a crowd watched. (Ellisville, June): After being on the run from a mob for ten days, John Hartfield [38] was burned in front of a crowd of thousands of revelers in Mississippi, many drawn to the lynching by advertisements in newspapers announcing the event. After he was shot, hung and lit on fire, the crowd reportedly took bits of his body as souvenirs. (Video)
