Watkinsville lynching
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The Watkinsville lynching was a mass lynching that occurred in Watkinsville, Georgia, United States on June 30, 1905. The lynching, which saw a large mob seize 9 men from a local jail and kill 8 of them by gunfire, has been described as "one of the worst episodes of racial violence ever in Georgia."[1]
History
In May 1905, a
According to The Oconee Enterprise, local newspapers at the time praised residents of the county for "not rushing to judgment."
Following the lynching, several of the bodies were buried in the same grave, leading a historian to say in an interview with CNN that "within an hour of Atlanta is a mass grave".[1] One of the victims, Sandy Price, was identified by his mother,[1] and he is the only victim with an identified grave.[6] A photograph of the dead bodies, still tied to the fence, was taken shortly after the murders.[2]
In 2007, the lynching attracted national attention as part of a story by CNN. Following this, a group that had worked to identify the graves of the victims in the Moore's Ford lynchings, a 1946 lynching that had occurred on the border between Oconee County and Walton County, Georgia, announced that they would work to identify the unmarked graves of the Watkinsville victims.[1] In 2020, on the 115th anniversary of the lynching, a vigil was held in Watkinsville for the victims,[6] with attendees organizing at the former site of the jail and marching to the grave of Sandy Price, where they paid their respects to the victims.[4]
Notes
- ^ Sources vary on the number of individuals in the group. A 1905 report in The Voice of the Negro gives the number as 100,[3] while a 2007 article in the Savannah Morning News says "at least 50 people"[1] and a 2020 story from WUGA says "as many as 50 white men".[4]
References
Bibliography
- Giles, Blake (June 17, 2015). "Family history clouded by murder, lynching". The Oconee Enterprise. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. April 1919 – via Google Books.
- Ridley, Alexia (June 26, 2020). "Remembering Victims of 1905 Mass Lynching in Watkinsville". WUGA. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
- "Our Monthly Review". The Voice of the Negro. II (8): 529–530. August 1905 – via Google Books.
- Thompson, Adam (November 22, 2007). "Group to look for lost graves from notorious 1905 lynching". Savannah Morning News. Morris Communications. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- "115-year anniversary of Watkinsville mass lynching". WAGA-TV. June 29, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2020.