Thousands of black people were victims of racial terror lynching in the United States between 1877 and 1950, as white supremacy and violent resistance to equal rights after the Civil War fueled fatal violence against African American women, men, and children, often on accusations unsupported by evidence and with little or no intervention by police, who sometimes participated, while mobs seized victims from jails, prisons, courtrooms, or police custody and carried out killings that often included burning and mutilation. In Maryland, at least 29 racial terror lynchings have been documented, and in Anne Arundel County at least five African Americans were lynched by white mobs between 1875 and 1911, creating a legacy of violence, intimidation, and injustice for the black community. In 1875, John Simms was seized from the county jail on Calvert Street and lynched at Simms Crossing. In 1884, George Briscoe was abducted while being transported to the jail and lynched by the Magothy River Bridge. In 1898, Wright Smith was taken from the county jail, tried to escape, and was shot in the back of the head as he fled. In 1906, Henry Davis was seized from the jail, dragged through the nearby Clay Street black community, hanged by College Creek, and shot more than 100 times. In 1911, King Johnson was abducted from the Brooklyn Station House, beaten, dragged through the streets, and shot to death. Although law enforcement often knew the perpetrators, no one was ever convicted for these acts of racial terror.
