Lynchings - KOLUMN Magazine

Celebrating The Lives of People of Color

[August 7, 1930] Thousands Lynch Two Black Men in Marion, Indiana | EJI, Equal Justice Initiative

September 8, 2020September 8, 2020KOLUMN Magazine, Lynchings

— EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On August 7, 1930, a white mob used crowbars and hammers to break into the Grant County jail in Marion, Indiana, to lynch three young Black men, who had been accused of murdering a white man and assaulting a white woman, and arrested earlier that afternoon. Thomas Shipp, […]

Mob of Unmasked White Men Lynch Rufus Lesseur in Alabama | EJI, Equal Justice Initiative

August 17, 2020August 17, 2020Lynchings

Best known for her series of deconstructed flags, Sonya Clark offers poignant, clearsighted reminders of this country’s legacy of racial violence. By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On August 16, 1904, a mob of unmasked white men in Marengo County, Alabama, lynched Rufus Lesseur, a 24-year-old Black man, and left his body riddled with […]

How the murder of Timothy Coggins was finally solved. | GQ

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020Lynchings

A Brutal Lynching. An Indifferent Police Force. A 34-Year Wait for Justice. By Wesley Lowery, GQ GRIFFIN, Ga. — In the final weeks of her life, Viola Coggins-Dorsey saw into the future. The 76-year-old had been sick for years, after her diabetes led to kidney failure. By February 2016 she’d all but stopped eating and […]

Attempted Lynching in Indiana. No Arrests? Meet the Survivor: Human Rights Commissioner Vauhxx Booker | Democracy Now

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020Lynchings

By Story, Democracy Now We go to Bloomington, Indiana, to speak with the African American human rights commissioner for Monroe County, Vauhxx Booker, who says he survived an attempted lynching when a group of white men pinned him against a tree over the Fourth of July weekend. “You have to be aware of George Floyd […]

Black Man Lynched in Alabama for Failing to Call a White Man “Mr.” | EJI, Equal Justice Initiative

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020Lynchings, Race

By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On June 21, 1940, a twenty-six-year-old black man named Jesse Thornton referred to a passing police officer by his name: Doris Rhodes. When the officer, a white man, overheard Mr. Thornton and ordered him to clarify his statement, Thornton attempted to correct himself by referring to the officer as “Mr. […]

Horace Duncan and Fred Coker Lynched in Springfield, Missouri | Equal Justice Initiative

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020African American History, Lynchings

Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1906, two innocent black men named Horace Duncan and Fred Coker (aka Jim Copeland) were abducted from the county jail by a white mob of several thousand participants and lynched in Springfield, Missouri. Two days following the public lynchings of Mr. Duncan and Mr. Coker, a newspaper reported that “now […]

Reuben Micou Lynched in Winston County, Mississippi | Equal Justice Initiative

April 2, 2020April 11, 2020African American History, Black History ...

On April 2, 1933, a mob of white men broke into the Winston County jail in Louisville, Mississippi to lynch a 65-year-old black man named Reuben Micou. Mr. Micou had been arrested after he was accused of getting into an altercation with a prominent local white man. By EJI Staff, Equal Justice InitiativeFeatured Image, Library of […]

Marie Scott Lynched in Wagoner County, Oklahoma | Equal Justice Initiative

April 1, 2020April 1, 2020African American History, Lynchings

On March 31, 1914, a white lynch mob in Wagoner County, Oklahoma, seized a 17-year-old black teenaged girl named Marie Scott from the local jail, dragged her screaming from her cell, and hanged her from a nearby telephone pole. Days before, a young white man named Lemuel Pierce was stabbed to death while he and […]

Christian Soldiers | Slate

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020African American History, Lynchings ...

The lynching and torture of blacks in the Jim Crow South weren’t just acts of racism. They were religious rituals. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] The cliché is that Americans have a short memory, but since Saturday, a number of us have been arguing over medieval religious wars and whether they have any lessons for today’s violence in […]

A Forgotten Lynching In Atlanta | WABE 90.1

October 28, 2019July 24, 2020African American History, Black History ...

By Stephannie Stokes, WABE 90.1 The first country-wide memorial to African-American victims of lynching opened last year in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. While it’s called the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the site is not government funded. It was built by the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal nonprofit that defends against wrongful convictions and racial discrimination. […]