Black Women who were Lynched in America
The lynching of Laura Nelson
(partial list)
Printed as a community service by Dr.
Daniel Meaders, Professor of History at William Patterson University,
and author of several books and articles, including Dead or Alive,
Fugitive Slaves and White Indentured Servants Before 1800 (Garland
Press, 1993)
Jennie Steers
On July 25, 1903 a mob lynched Jennie Steers on the Beard Plantation in
Louisiana for supposedly giving a white teenager, 16 year-old Elizabeth
Dolan, a glass of poisoned lemonade. Before they killed her, the mob
tried to force her to confess but she refused and was hanged. (100 Years
at Lynching. Ralph Ginzburg)
Laura Nelson
Laura Nelson was lynched on May 23, 1911 In Okemah, Okluskee, Oklahoma.
Her fifteen year old son was also lynched at the same time but I could
not find a photo of her son. The photograph of Nelson was drawn from a
postcard. Authorities accused her of killing a deputy sheriff who
supposedly stumbled on some stolen goods in her house. Why they lynched
her child is a mystery. The mob raped and dragged Nelson six miles to
the Canadian River and hanged her from a bridge.(NAACP: One Hundred
Years of Lynching in the US 1889-1918 )
Ann Barksdale or Ann Bostwick
The lynchers maintained that Ann Barksdale or Ann Bostwlck killed her
female employer in Pinehurst, Georgia on June 24, 1912. Nobody knows if
or why Barksdale or Bostick killed her employer because there was no
trial and no one thought to take a statement from this Black woman who
authorities claimed had ”violent fits of insanity” and should have been
placed in a hospital. Nobody was arrested and the crowd was In a festive
mood. Placed in a car with a rope around her neck, and the other end
tied to a tree limb, the lynchers drove at high speed and she was
strangled to death. For good measure the mob shot her eyes out and shot
enough bullets Into her body that she was “cut in two.”
Marie Scott
March 31, 1914, a white mob of at least a dozen males, yanked seventeen
year-old Marie Scott from jail, threw a rope over her head as she
screamed and hanged her from a telephone pole in Wagoner County,
Oklahoma. What happened? Two drunken white men barged Into her house as
she was dressing. They locked themselves in her room and criminally
“assaulted” her. Her brother apparently heard her screams for help,
kicked down the door, killed one assailant and fled. Some accounts state
that the assailant was stabbed. Frustrated by their inability to lynch
Marie Scott’s brother the mob lynched Marie Scott. (Crisis 1914 and 100
Years of Lynching)
Mary Turner 1918 Eight Months Pregnant
Mobs lynched Mary Turner on May 17, 1918 in Lowndes County. Georgia
because she vowed to have those responsible for killing her husband
arrested. Her husband was arrested in connection with the shooting and
killing Hampton Smith, a white farmer for whom the couple had worked,
and wounding his wife. Sidney Johnson. a Black, apparently killed Smith
because he was tired of the farmer’s abuse. Unable to find Johnson. the
killers lynched eight other Blacks Including Hayes Turner and his wife
Mary. The mob hanged Mary by her feet, poured gasoline and oil on her
and set fire to her body. One white man sliced her open and Mrs.
Turner’s baby tumbled to the ground with a “little cry” and the mob
stomped the baby to death and sprayed bullets into Mary Turner. (NAACP:
Thirty Years of Lynching in the U.S. 1889-1918 )
Maggie Howze and Alma Howze -Both Pregnant
Accused of the murder of Dr. E.L. Johnston in December 1918. Whites
lynched Andrew Clark, age 15, Major Clark, age 20, Maggie Howze, age 20,
and Alma Howze, age 16 from a bridge near Shutaba, a town in
Mississippi. The local press described Johnston as being a wealthy
dentist, but he did not have an established business in the true sense
of the word. He sought patients by riding his buggy throughout the
community offering his services to the public at large in Alabama.
Unable to make money “peddling” dentistry, the dentist returned to
Mississippi to work on his father’s land near Shabuta. During his
travels he had developed an intimate relationship with Maggie Howze. a
Black woman who he had asked to move and lived with him. He also asked
that she bring her sister Alma Howze along. While using the Black young
women as sexual objects Johnson impregnated both of them though he was
married and had a child. Three Black laborers worked on Johnston’s
plantation, two of whom were brothers, Major and Andrew Clark. Major
tried to court Maggie, but Johnson was violently opposed to her trying
to create a world of her own that did not include him. To block a threat
to his sexual fiefdom, Johnston threaten Clark’s life. Shortly after
Johnston turned up dead and the finger was pointed at Major Clark and
the Howze sisters. The whites picked up Major, his brother, Maggie and
her sister and threw them in jail. To extract a confession from Major
Clark, the authorities placed his testicles between the “jaws of a vise”
and slowly closed it until Clark admitted that he killed Johnston.
White community members took the four Blacks out of jail, placed them in
an automobile, turned the head lights out and headed to the lynching
site. Eighteen other cars, carrying members of the mob, followed close
behind. Someone shut the power plant down and the town fell into
darkness. Ropes were placed around the necks of the four Blacks and the
other ends tied to the girder of the bridge. Maggie Howze cried, “I
ain’t guilty of killing the doctor and you oughtn’t to kill me.” Someone
took a monkey wrench and “struck her In the mouth with It, knocking her
teeth out. She was also hit across the head with the same instrument,
cutting a long gash In which the side of a person’s hand could be
placed.” While the three other Blacks were killed instantly, Maggie
Howze, four months pregnant, managed to grab the side of the bridge to
break her fall. She did this twice before she died and the mob joked
about how difficult it was to kill that “big Jersey woman.” No one
stepped forward to claim the bodies. No one held funeral services for
the victims. The Black community demanded that the whites cut them down
and bury them because they ‘lynched them.” The whites placed them in
unmarked graves.
Alma Howze was on the verge of giving birth when the whites killed
her. One witness claimed that at her “burial on the second day
following, the movements of her unborn child could be detected.” Keep in
mind, Johnston’s parents felt that the Blacks had nothing to do with
their son’s death and that some irate white man killed him, knowing that
the blame would fall on the Black’s shoulders. The indefatigable Walter
White, NAACP secretary, visited the scene of the execution and crafted
the report. He pressed Governor Bilbo of Mississippi to look into the
lynching and Bilbo told the NAACP to go to hell. (NAACP: Thirty Years of
Lynching in the U.S.. 1889-1918 ) (Papers of the NAACP)
Holbert Burnt at the Stake
Luther Holbert, a Black, supposedly killed James Eastland, a wealthy
planter and John Carr, a negro, who lived near Doddsville Mississippi.
After a hundred mile chase over four days, the mob of more than 1,000
persons caught Luther and his wife and tied them both to trees. They
were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at a time was
chopped off and their ears were cut off. Pieces of raw quivering flesh
was pulled out of their arms, legs and body with a bore screw and kept
for souvenirs. Holbert was beaten and his skull fractured. An eye was
knocked out with a stick and hung from the socket. (100 Years of
Lynching by Ralph Ginzburg)
Mae Murray Dorsey and Dorothy Malcolm
On July 25, 1946, four young African Americans—George & Mae Murray
Dorsey and Roger & Dorothy Malcom—were shot hundreds of times by 12
to 15 unmasked white men in broad daylight at the Moore’s Ford bridge
spanning the Apalachee River, 60 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia. These
killings, for which no one was ever prosecuted, enraged President Harry
Truman and led to historic changes, but were quickly forgotten in Oconee
and Walton Counties where they occurred. No one was ever brought to
justice for the crime.
Ballie Crutchfield
Around midnight on March 15, 1901 Ballie Crutchfield was taken from her
home in Rome to a bridge over Round Lick Creek by a mob. There her hands
were tied behind her, and she was shot through the head and then thrown
in the creek. Her body was recovered the next day and an inquest found
that she met her death at the hands of persons unknown (euphemism for
lynching).
After Walter Sampson lost a pocketbook containing $120, it was found
by a little boy. As he went to return it to its owner, William
Crutchfield, Ballie’s brother, met the boy. Apparently, the boy gave him
the pocketbook after being convinced it had no value. Sampson had
Crutchfield arrested and taken to the house of one Squire Bains.
A mob came to take Crutchfield for execution. On the way he broke
lose and escaped in the dark. The mob was so blind with rage they lay
blame on Ballie as a co-conspirator in her brother’s alleged crime and
proceeded to enact upon their beliefs culminating in the aforementioned
orgy of inhumanity.
Belle Hathaway
At 9 o’clock the night of January 23, 1912 100 men congregated in front
of the Hamilton, Georgia courthouse. They then broke into the Harris
County Jail. After overpowering Jailor E.M. Robinson they took three men
and a woman one mile from town.
Belle Hathaway, John Moore, Eugene Hamming, and “Dusty” Cruthfield
were in jail after being charged with the shooting death a farmer named
Norman Hadley.
Writhing bodies silhouetted against the sky as revolvers and rifles
blazed forth a cacophony of 300 shots at the victims before the mob
dispersed.
Sullivan Couple Hung as Deputy Sheriff and Posse Watch
Fred Sullivan and his wife were hanged after being accused of burning a
barn on a plantation near Byhalia, Mississippi November 25, 1914. The
deputy sheriff and his posse were forced to watch the proceedings.
Cordella Stevenson Raped and Lynched
Wednesday, December 8, 1915 Cordella Stevenson was hung from the limb of
a tree without any clothing about fifty yards north of the Mobile and
Ohio Railroad outside Columbus, Mississippi. The gruesomely horrific
scene was witnessed by thousands and thousands of passengers who
traveled in and out of the city the next morning.
She was hung there by a bloodthirsty mob who had taken her from
slumber, husband and home to the spot where she was raped and lynched.
All this was done after she had been brought to the police station for
questioning in connection with the arson of Gabe Frank’s barn. Her son
had been suspected of the fire. The police released her after she
convinced them her son had left home several months prior and she did
not know his whereabouts.
After going to bed early, a knock was heard at the door. Her husband,
Arch Stevenson went to answer, but the door was broken down first and
his wife was seized. He was threatened with rifle barrels to his head
should he move.
The body was left hanging until Friday morning. An inquest returned a verdict of “death at the hands of persons unknown.”
5 Hanged on One Oak Tree
Three men and two women were taken from the jail in Newberry, Florida on
August 19, 1916 and hanged by a mob. Another man was shot by deputy
sheriffs near Jonesville, Florida. All this was the result of the
killing the day prior of Constable S.G. Wynne and the shooting of Dr.
L.G. Harris by Boisey Long. Those who were lynched had been accused of
aiding Long in his escape.
Mary Conley
After Sam Conley had been reprimanded by E.M. Melvin near Arlington,
Georgia, his mother Mary intervened to express her resentment. After
Melvin slapped and grappled with her, Sam Conley struck Melvin on the
head with an iron scale weight, resulting in his death shortly
afterward.
Although Sam escaped, his mother was captured and jailed. She was
taken from the jail at Leary and her body was riddled with bullets. Her
remains were found along the roadside by parties entering into Arlington
the next morning.
Bertha Lowman
Demon Lowman, Bertha Lowman, and their cousin Clarence Lowman were in
the Aiken, South Carolina jail when it was raided by a mob early on
October 8, 1926. The three had been in jail for a year and a half while
they were tried for the murder of Sheriff and Klansman Henry H.H.
Howard. Howard was shot in the back while raiding the house of Sam
Lowman, father to Bertha and Demon. Klansmen filed by Howard’s body
two-by-two when it laid in state. A year after his funeral a cross was
burned in the cemetery at his grave.
Although the Lowman’s were tried and sentenced to death, a State
Supreme Court reversed the findings and ordered a new trial. Demon had
just been found not guilty when the raid on the jail occurred. Taken to a
pine thicket just beyond the city limits their bodies were riddled with
bullets.
The events which resulted in this lynching are surreal to say the
least. Samuel Lowman was away from home at a mill having meal ground on
April 25, 1925. Sheriff Howard and three deputies appeared at the Lowman
Cabin three miles from Aiken. Annie Lowman, Samuel’s wife and their
daughter Bertha were out back of the house working. Their family had
never been in any kind of trouble. They did not know the sheriff and he
did not know them. Furthermore, they were not wearing any uniform or
regalia depicting them as law enforcers. Hence the alarming state of
mind they had when four white men entered their yard unannounced, even
if it was on a routine whiskey check. It was even more distressing
because a group of white men had come to the house a few weeks earlier
and whipped Demon for no reason at all. After speaking softly to each
other the women decided to go in the house.
When the men saw the women move towards the house they drew their
revolvers and rushed forward. Sheriff Howard reached the back step at
the same time as Bertha. He struck her in the mouth with his pistol
butt. Mrs. Lowman picked up an axe and rushed to her daughter’s aid. A
deputy emptied his revolver into the old woman killing her.
Demon and Clarence were working in a nearby field when they heard
Bertha’s scream. Demon retrieved a pistol from a shed while Clarence
armed himself with a shotgun. The deputies shot at Demon, who returned
fire. Clarence’s actions are not clear. When it was all over a few
seconds later the Sheriff was dead. Bertha had received two gunshots to
the chest just above her heart. Clarence and Demon were wounded also. In
total five members of the Lowman family were in put jail.
Samuel Lowman returned to find in his absence he had become a widower
with four of his children in jail along with his nephew. In three days
he would be charged with harboring illegal liquor when a quarter of a
bottle of the substance is found in his backyard. For that the elderly
farmer was sentenced to two years on the chain gang.
18 year old Bertha, 22 year old Demon and 15 year old Clarence were
tried for the Sheriff’s murder and swiftly found guilty. The men were
sentenced to death with Bertha given a life sentence.
Demon’s acquittal made it appear that Clarence and Bertha would been
freed as well. The day they were murdered they were taken from the jail,
driven to a tourist a few miles from town and set loose. As they ran
they were shot down.
Mr. Lowman contended one of the deputies who coveted the Sheriff’s
job was his real killer. The same man later led the mob which slew
Lowman’s children and nephew. Apparently, he knew they could identify
him as the culprit.
Edited by PurpleHaze - Feb 10 2013 at 6:20pm
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