Selma in Dallas County, Alabama — The American South (East South Central)
Lynching in America / Lynching in Selma
Community Remembrance Project
Photographed By Daniel Eisenberg, April 12, 2019
1. Lynching in America / Lynching in Selma
Inscription.
Lynching in America, also, Lynching in Selma. Community Remembrance Project.
Lynching in America. Thousands of African Americans were victims of lynching and racial violence in the United States between the Civil War and World War II. The lynching of African Americans during this era was a form of racial terrorism used to intimidate black people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. Racial terror lynching was most prevalent in the South. After the Civil War, violent resistance to equal rights for African Americans and an ideology of white supremacy led to fatal violence against black women, men, and children accused of violating social customs, engaging in interracial relationships, or crimes. Community leaders who spoke against this racial terror were themselves often targeted by violent mobs. Racial terror lynching became the most public and notorious form of racial terror and subordination directed at black people and was frequently tolerated or even supported by law enforcement and elected officials. Though racial terror lynching generally took place in communities with functioning criminal justice systems, racial terror lynching victims were denied due process, often based on mere accusations, and pulled from jails or delivered to mobs by law officers legally required to protect them. Millions of African Americans fled the South to escape the climate of terror and trauma created by these acts of violence. Of the more than 350 documented racial terror lynchings that took place in Alabama between 1877 and 1950, nineteen took place in Dallas County.,
Lynching in Selma. The jail in Selma, Alabama, was a repeated site of racial terror lynching and violence that devastated the African American community. In February 1895, police arrested Willy Webb in Waynesville and moved him to the jail in Selma under threat that local whites planned to lynch him. Hours after Mr. Webb arrived in Selma, before he could stand trial, a "well-armed" lynch mob kidnapped him from jail and killed him. The next year, in June 1893, a lynch mob seized another black man named Daniel Edwards from the Selma jail, hanged him from a tree, and riddled his body with bullets. Mr. Edwards's corpse was left hanging with a note pinned to his back: "Warning to all black men that are too intimate with white girls. This is the work of one hundred best citizens of the South Side." Racial terror lynchings continued in Selma well into the 20th century. On July 11, 1938, Joe Spinner Johnson was called from his work as a sharecropper and delivered directly into the hands of a white mob that bound him and beat him mercilessly. The mob then took Mr. Johnson to the jail in Selma, where witnesses heard him beaten while screaming. Several days later, Mr. Johnson's mutilated body was found in a field near Greensboro. A leader of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union that operated from 1931 to 1936 to help sharecroppers receive better wages and treatment and to reduce inequality in Alabama's Black Belt, Mr. Johnson challenged the exploitative and racially discriminatory practices of wealthy white planters and landowners, and for that he was targeted and lynched. These lynchings were terrorist acts committed with the involvement and complicity of law enforcement officers, and they commonly went unpunished. Racial terror lynching in Selma created trauma and misery while reinforcing white supremacy and denying black people in this community the basic rights of citizenship.
Lynching in America
Thousands of African Americans were victims of lynching and racial violence in the United States between the Civil War and World War II. The lynching of African Americans during this era was a form of racial terrorism used to intimidate black people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. Racial terror lynching was most prevalent in the South. After the Civil War, violent resistance to equal rights for African Americans and an ideology of white supremacy led to fatal violence against black women, men, and children accused of violating social customs, engaging in interracial relationships, or crimes. Community leaders who spoke against this racial terror were themselves often targeted by violent mobs. Racial terror lynching became the most public and notorious form of racial terror and subordination directed at black people and was frequently tolerated or even supported by law enforcement and elected officials. Though racial terror lynching generally took place in communities with functioning criminal justice systems, racial terror lynching victims were denied due process, often based on mere accusations, and pulled from jails or delivered to mobs by law officers legally required to protect them. Millions of African Americans fled the South to escape the climate of terror and trauma created
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by these acts of violence. Of the more than 350 documented racial terror lynchings that took place in Alabama between 1877 and 1950, nineteen took place in Dallas County.
Lynching in Selma
The jail in Selma, Alabama, was a repeated site of racial terror lynching and violence that devastated the African American community. In February 1895, police arrested Willy Webb in Waynesville and moved him to the jail in Selma under threat that local whites planned to lynch him. Hours after Mr. Webb arrived in Selma, before he could stand trial, a "well-armed" lynch mob kidnapped him from jail and killed him. The next year, in June 1893, a lynch mob seized another black man named Daniel Edwards from the Selma jail, hanged him from a tree, and riddled his body with bullets. Mr. Edwards's corpse was left hanging with a note pinned to his back: "Warning to all black men that are too intimate with white girls. This is the work of one hundred best citizens of the South Side." Racial terror lynchings continued in Selma well into the 20th century. On July 11, 1938, Joe Spinner Johnson was called from his work as a sharecropper and delivered directly into the hands of a white mob that bound him and beat him mercilessly. The mob then took Mr. Johnson to the jail in Selma, where witnesses heard him beaten while screaming. Several days later, Mr. Johnson's mutilated
Photographed By Daniel Eisenberg
2. Lynching in America / Lynching in Selma
body was found in a field near Greensboro. A leader of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union that operated from 1931 to 1936 to help sharecroppers receive better wages and treatment and to reduce inequality in Alabama's Black Belt, Mr. Johnson challenged the exploitative and racially discriminatory practices of wealthy white planters and landowners, and for that he was targeted and lynched. These lynchings were terrorist acts committed with the involvement and complicity of law enforcement officers, and they commonly went unpunished. Racial terror lynching in Selma created trauma and misery while reinforcing white supremacy and denying black people in this community the basic rights of citizenship.
Location. 32° 24.185′ N, 87° 1.007′ W. Marker is in Selma, Alabama, in Dallas County. Marker is on U.S. 80, on the right when traveling north. Located at the south end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Selma AL 36701, United States of America. Touch for directions.
4. Marker at Civil Rights Memorial Park (on right of Selma sign)
Photographed By Mark Hilton, May 28, 2023
5. Lynching in America / Lynching in Selma Marker
Credits. This page was last revised on May 28, 2023. It was originally submitted on April 13, 2019, by Daniel Eisenberg of Boca Raton, Florida. This page has been viewed 869 times since then and 113 times this year. Photos:1, 2. submitted on April 13, 2019, by Daniel Eisenberg of Boca Raton, Florida. 3, 4, 5. submitted on May 28, 2023, by Mark Hilton of Montgomery, Alabama. • Andrew Ruppenstein was the editor who published this page.
