From [HERE] Hundreds of people joined the Lee County Remembrance Project on June 12 for a ceremony to celebrate the unveiling of a historical marker in historic downtown Opelika’s Courthouse Square. The marker memorializes the lynching of four Black people—John Moss, George Hart, Charles Humphries, and Samuel Harris. LCRP also plans to memorialize Charles Miller, the county’s fifth documented lynching victim.

The ceremony took place at First United Methodist Church and included remarks from coalition members, community members, the local NAACP chapter, and local officials. To conclude the program, attendees walked to the square, where coalition members Ashley Brown, Olivia Nichols, Patricia Butts, Jean Madden, and Harriette Huggins unveiled the marker.

The Lynchings of John Moss, George Hart, Charles Humphries, and Samuel Harris

Between 1877 and 1950, white mobs lynched at least 361 African Americans in Alabama. At least five Black people were lynched in Lee County.

During this era, Black people faced a presumption of guilt that made them vulnerable to accusations of crime and mob violence, often without investigation. In 1886, cousins John Moss and George Hart were part of a search party that found the body of a missing white man in Waverly. Rather than being celebrated for their efforts to locate the missing man, race-based suspicion soon turned to John Moss and George Hart. Hearing that a lynch mob accused them of the murder, the cousins attempted to get to safety. On November 3, the white mob kidnapped Mr. Moss. Despite his pleas of innocence, the mob tortured him, hanged him, and burned his body.

Mr. Hart was seized in a “citizen’s arrest” and taken to the Montgomery jail to avoid mob violence. On November 1, 1887, he was returned to Opelika for trial. News soon broke that the evidence against Mr. Hart was not strong enough for a conviction. On November 5, over 60 armed white men kidnapped him from the Opelika jail.

Although legally required to protect people in their custody, police were often indifferent to or ineffective at protecting Black people. The white mob hanged Mr. Hart from the same tree as John Moss and pinned a placard to his back. It read: “This negro was hung by 100 determined men; whoever cuts him down will suffer his fate.”

Local officials, including local law enforcement, were complicit in each of these lynchings. No one was ever held accountable.

On November 3, 1902, an armed white mob seized Samuel Harris, a Black man who was picking cotton in a field when two white women reported a robbery and assault nearby in Salem. Hours later, despite having no evidence that implicated Mr. Harris in the crime, over 125 men shot him to death. His pregnant wife, Beatrice, was arrested as an accomplice. Newspapers did not report what happened to Mrs. Harris after her arrest.

On March 18, 1900, a white mob lynched Charles Humphries. The previous day, a white teenager reported being startled when she saw Mr. Humphries, a young Black employee of her father, in her room. The mob went to Mr. Humphries’s home near Phenix City and shot him more than 40 times.

During this era, white people’s fears of interracial sex extended to any action by a Black man that could be interpreted as seeking contact with a white woman.

White communities were often supportive of violence against Black people, and the lynchings of many victims were not recorded and remain unknown. Lynching inflicted lasting traumatic wounds for Black people in the South and thousands fled the region as refugees from racial terrorism.