Liberty and Justice for All, Denied

Liberty and Justice for All, Denied. . , Between 1877 and 1891, the following five horrific racially motivated terror lynchings of African American men took place in Williamson County. On March 18, 1877, masked men violently took Jim Walker, accused of rape and murder, from the County Courthouse and hanged him, without a trial. In 1878, a White lynch mob took Calvin Beatty from the county jail for allegedly raping a child and hanged him at a location near Moores Lane. In October that year another White lynch mob chased John Thomas, who it alleged raped a White child. He was chased for 3 miles before the mob hanged him outside Franklin., On August 10, 1888, members of the local Ku Klux Klan violently removed Amos Miller, who was accused of the rape of a White woman, from the courtroom at the County Courthouse and hanged him from the courthouse's second story rather than allow him a fair trial. On April 30, 1891, a White lynch mob took Jim Taylor, accused of shooting a police officer, and hanged him on the Murfreesboro Road Bridge near downtown Franklin. This Marker is the third in a series sponsored by the Williamson Remembrance Project, which believes that by confronting with honesty this history, our community will be stronger and more united in its quest for Liberty and Justice for All. In 2021, Congress approved the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which became effective in 2022., Other Williamson Remembrance Project markers are at Franklin's Square and at the City Cemetery..