Lynching of John Harrison
Part of Jim Crow Era | |
Map from Malvern, Hot Spring County, Arkansas, showing the train station where he was lynched | |
Date | February 2, 1922 |
---|---|
Location | Malvern, Hot Spring County, Arkansas |
Participants | A masked mob of around twenty men |
Deaths | John Henry Harrison |
John Henry Harrison (also referred to as Harry Harrison[1] and John Harris[2]) was a 38-year-old African-American man who was lynched in Malvern, Hot Spring County, Arkansas, by masked men on February 2, 1922. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary it was the 10th of 61 lynchings in America and 1 of 5 lynchings in the State of Arkansas during 1922.[1]
Background
According to the 1920 census John Harrison was thirty-eight years old, married, and worked as a laborer in a Malvern lumber mill.[3] In 1917, when he registered for the military draft, he was living at 405 Vine Street in Malvern.[4] In early 1922 he began to show troubling behavior including stalking and threatening women. One of these woman reported his actions to Hot Spring County, Arkansas Sheriff Donald F. Bray who arrested Harrison in February 1922.[3]
Lynching
Word of his arrest and that he was harassing white women spread and a mob quickly gathered on the evening of February 2, 1922. Sheriff Bray, fearing a lynching, tried to spirit Harrison out of the town by road to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, but found all roads blocked. He then tried to smuggle him out by train hiding him under a seat in the segregated "colored" section of the train around 10:30 PM. Just before the train could leave, a group of around 20 men stopped the train and went from car to car searching for Harrison. He was discovered, dragged a short distance away, and shot at least seventeen times.[3] [5]
Aftermath
In 1923 John Henry Harrison's sister, Callie Henry, tried to sue Sheriff D. S. Bray, deputies W. T. Gamble and S. H. Leiper, and W. H. Cooper for his death while in their custody as well as alleged leaders of the mob, including Clarence Chamberlain, R. S. Hodges, Leonard Stanley, and Ray Galina, but the courts ruled against her the following year.[6]
National memorial
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26, 2018. Featured among other things is the Memorial Corridor which displays 805 hanging steel rectangles, each representing the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place and, for each county, the names of those lynched.[7] The memorial hopes that communities, like Hot Spring County, Arkansas where Mr. Norman was lynched, will take these slabs and install them in their own communities.
See also
- Mr. Norman was an African-American man who was lynched in Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas by masked men on February 11, 1922
- John West was a 50-year-old African-American man who was lynched in Guernsey, Hempstead County, Arkansas by a group of men on the Hope-Texarkana train on July 28, 1922.
- Gilbert Harris was lynched on August 1, 1922, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. A white mob some 500 strong broke into the jail seized Gilbert Harris after overpowering the police in the public square (actually a triangle shape in front of the Como hotel). Even though Harris had a history of break and enters he professed his innocence.
- Less Smith was lynched in Morrilton, Conway County, Arkansas on December 9, 1922. Deputy sheriff Granville Edward Farish was trying to collect a debt from Smith when a scuffle broke out. In the fight, Farish smashed a bottle over Smith's head whereupon Smith shot him in the stomach. Smith was arrested and a white mob soon gathered. When officials tried to move Smith to another jail he was seized, hanged from a tree and his body riddled with bullets. When the body was taken to the undertaker the mob burst in to view the body.
References
- Notes
- ^ a b United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary 1926, p. 17.
- ^ Arkansas Gazette, February 5, 1922, p. 8.
- ^ a b c Griffith 2022.
- ^ Dillard 2022.
- ^ The Birmingham Age-Herald, February 4, 1922, p. 1.
- ^ Arkansas Gazette, March 8, 1925, p. 1.
- ^ Robertson 2018.
- Bibliography
- "Negro Killed by Unknown Persons". Arkansas Gazette. Little Rock, Arkansas. February 5, 1922. OCLC 8794697.
- "Suit Based on Lynching of Negro Dismissed". Arkansas Gazette. Little Rock, Arkansas. March 8, 1925. OCLC 8794697.
- Dillard, Tom (January 23, 2022). "A murder with no repercussions". arkansasonline.com. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
- "Arkansas mob riddles Negro". Birmingham, Jefferson, Alabama: Age-Herald Co. February 4, 1922. pp. 1–14. OCLC 12607279. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
- Griffith, Nancy Snell (March 4, 2022). "John Henry Harrison (Lynching of)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
- Robertson, Campbell (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
- United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1926). "To Prevent and Punish the Crime of Lynching: Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on S. 121, Sixty-Ninth Congress, First Session, on Feb. 16, 1926". United States Government Publishing Office. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
- v
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Number | Name | Date | Place | Method of lynching | Number of victims |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Bill McAllister | January 8, 1922 | Williamsburg, S.C. | Shot | 1 |
2 | Lincoln Hickson | January 8, 1922 | Williamsburg, S.C. | Shot | 1 |
3 | Willie Jenkins | January 10, 1922 | Eufaula, Alabama | Shot | 1 |
4 | Jake Brooks | January 14, 1922 | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | Hanged | 1 |
5 | Charles Strong | January 17, 1922 | Mayo, Florida | Hanged | 1 |
6 | Will Bell | January 29, 1922 | Pontotoc, Mississippi | Shot | 1 |
7 | Unidentified | January 29, 1922 | Pontotoc, Mississippi | Shot | |
8 | Drew Conner (White) | January 28, 1922 | Bolinger, Alabama | Burned | 1 |
9 | Will Thrasher | February 1, 1922 | Crystal Springs, Mississippi | Hanged | 1 |
10 | Harry Harrison | February 2, 1922 | Malvern, Arkansas | Shot | 1 |
11 | Manuel Duarte | February 2, 1922 | Cameron County, Texas | Shot | 1 |
12 | P. Norman | February 11, 1922 | Texarkana, Arkansas | Shot | 1 |
13 | Will Jones | February 13, 1922 | Ellaville, Georgia | Shot | 1 |
14 | William Baker | March 8, 1922 | Aberdeen, Mississippi | Hanged | 1 |
15 | Alfred Williams | March 12, 1922 | Harlem, Georgia | Hanged | 1 |
16 | Brown Culpepper (White) | March 13, 1922 | Holly Grove, Louisiana | Shot | 1 |
17 | Jerry Ingram | March 17, 1922 | Crawford, Mississippi | Shot | 1 |
18 | Unidentified (white) | March 19, 1922 | Okay, Oklahoma | Drowned | 1 |
19 | Alexander Smith | March 22, 1922 | Gulfport, Mississippi | Hanged | 1 |
20 | Snap Curry | May 6, 1922 | Kirvin, Texas | Burned | 1 |
21 | H. Varney (or Johnnie Cornish) | May 6, 1922 | Kirvin, Texas | Burned | 1 |
22 | Mose Jones | May 6, 1922 | Kirvin, Texas | Burned | 1 |
23 | Tom Cornish | May 8, 1922 | Kirvin, Texas | Hanged | 1 |
24 | Thomas Early | May 17, 1922 | Conroe, Texas | Burned | 1 |
25 | Charles Atkins | May 18, 1922 | Davisboro, Georgia | Burned | 1 |
26 | Hullen Owens | May 19, 1922 | Texarkana, Texas | Hanged (body burned) | 1 |
27 | Joe Winters | May 20, 1922 | Conroe, Texas | Burned | 1 |
28 | Mose Bozier | May 20, 1922 | Alleyton, Texas | Hanged | 1 |
29 | Gilbert Wilson | May 23, 1922 | Bryan, Texas | Beaten to death | 1 |
30 | Jesse Thomas | May 26, 1922 | Waco, Texas | Shot (body burned) | 1 |
31 | William Byrd | May 28, 1922 | Brentwood, Georgia | Shot (body burned) | 1 |
32 | Robert Collins | June 20, 1922 | Summit, Mississippi | Hanged | 1 |
33 | Warren Lewis | June 23, 1922 | New Dacus, Texas | Hanged | 1 |
34 | James Harvey | July 1, 1922 | Lanes Bridge, Georgia | Hanged | 1 |
35 | Joe Jordan | July 1, 1922 | Lanes Bridge, Georgia | Hanged | 1 |
36 | Philip Tankard | July 5, 1922 | Belhaven, North Carolina | Shot | 1 |
37 | Joe Pemberton | July 7, 1922 | Benton, Louisiana | Hanged | 1 |
38 | Jake "Shake" Davis | July 14, 1922 | Miller County, Georgia | Hanged | 1 |
39 | Oscar Mack | July 18, 1922 | Orange County, Florida | Hanged (False report, Oscar Mack survived) | 1 |
40 | Will Anderson | July 24, 1922 | Allentown, Georgia | Shot | 1 |
41 | John West | July 28, 1922 | Guernsey, Arkansas | Shot | 1 |
42 | Gilbert Harris | August 1, 1922 | Hot Springs, Arkansas | Hanged | 1 |
43 | John Glover | August 1, 1922 | Holton, | Shot | 1 |
44 | Bayner Blackwell | August 6, 1922 | Swansboro, North Carolina | Shot | 1 |
45 | John Steelman | August 23, 1922 | Lambert, Mississippi | Burned | 1 |
46 | Thomas Rivers | August 30, 1922 | Bossier Parish, Louisiana | Hanged | 1 |
47 | F. Watt Daniels (White) | August 1922 | Mer Rouge, Louisiana | Ku-Klux Klan | 1 |
48 | Thomas F. Richards (White) | August 1922 | Mer Rouge, Louisiana | Ku-Klux Klan | 1 |
49 | Jim Reed Long | September 2, 1922 | Winder, Georgia | Ku-Klux Klan | 1 |
50 | O.J. Johnson | September 7, 1922 | Newton, Texas | Hanged | 1 |
51 | Jim Johnston | September 28, 1922 | Sandersville, Georgia | Hanged | 1 |
52 | Grover C. Everett | September 28, 1922 | Abilene, Texas | Shot | 1 |
53 | John Brown | October 3, 1922 | Montgomery, Alabama | Shot | 1 |
54 | Ed Hartley (white) | October 20, 1922 | Camden, Tennessee | Shot | 1 |
55 | George Hartley (white) | October 20, 1922 | Camden, Tennessee | Shot | 1 |
56 | Elias V. Zarate | November 11, 1922 | Weslaco, Texas | Shot | 1 |
57 | Cupid Dickson / Cubrit Dixon | December 5, 1922 | Madison, Florida | Shot | 1 |
58 | Charles Wright | December 8 ,1922 | Perry, Florida | Burned | 1 |
59 | Less Smith | December 9, 1922 | Morrilton, Arkansas | Burned | 1 |
60 | George Gay | December 11, 1922 | Streetman, Texas | Hanged | 1 |
61 | Arthur Young | December 11, 1922 | Perry, Florida | Hanged | 1 |