Lynching in America / Lynching of John Henry James

Between 1877 and 1950, thousands of African Americans in the United States were victims of lynching and racial violence as racial terror emerged as a violent resistance to emancipation and equal rights, intended to intimidate black people and enforce racial hierarchy, segregation, white supremacy, and political, social, and economic exploitation, especially in the South. These public acts of subordination were often tolerated or supported by law enforcement and elected officials, as white mobs attacked with impunity, sometimes removing black people from jails or receiving them from officers who were legally required to protect them, and allegations alone could trigger brutal reprisals including burnings and mutilations before crowds of thousands; more than 84 victims were documented in Virginia alone. In 1898, John Henry James, a black ice cream vendor who had lived in Charlottesville for five or six years, was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman and arrested on July 11. Police moved him to Staunton that evening to avoid a possible lynching, but officers escorted him back toward Charlottesville by train the next morning, when an armed mob of 150 white men stopped the train at Wood's Crossing in Albemarle County and seized him. After a group of black men tried but failed to stop the attackers, the mob put a rope around James's neck, dragged him about 40 yards to a small locust tree, hanged him despite his protests of innocence, and shot his body dozens of times. As his body remained hanging for many hours, hundreds more white people passed by and took pieces of his clothing, body, and the tree as souvenirs, according to the Richmond Planet. Although the grand jury issued a posthumous indictment as if James were still alive, no one was ever charged or held accountable for his murder despite the presence of the Charlottesville police chief and Albemarle County sheriff.

Charlottesville, Virginia · United States