Lynching of Willie Temple

Will or Willie Temple (also named "John"[1]) was an African American man who was lynched by a white mob on September 30, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Willie Temple born in 1894; he was the oldest of four children. His parents, Lewis and Ella (Shorter) Temple, were farmers, and Temple worked for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad as a cook. On September 29, 1919, at night, Temple and another man came back from a dance when, after being approached by a third man, a fight broke out. A police officer named J. J. Barbaree (spelled "Barbare" in a contemporary newspaper article[2]) tried to arrest them, and shots were fired, by Temple and Barbaree. The police officer died, and Temple, wounded, was arrested at a colleague's house. Temple was taken to Hale Infirmary, a hospital for African American citizens of Montgomery,[3] and on the morning of September 30, just after 2AM,[2] a white mob entered and, despite the presence of two police officers, shot him to death.[3]

A jar with soil from the site where he was murdered is held at The Legacy Museum in Montgomery.[4] The jar is marked "John Temple"; it was filled with soil by Vanzetta Penn McPherson, retired magistrate judge for the Middle District of Alabama, and activist Anthony Ray Hinton.[5]

The event was one of many racist murders and riots during the so-called Red Summer of 1919. Two other men in Montgomery (both veterans of the Armed Forces) had been murdered the day before.[2]

References

  1. ^ The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer (September 30, 1919). "Negro Shot To Death By Mob". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. pp. 1–16. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c "Three Negroes Lynched Within Space of 12 Hours". The Daily Gazette. September 30, 1919. p. 1. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
  3. ^ a b "Hale Infirmary / The Lynching of Willie Temple". Historical Marker Database. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
  4. ^ Ramsey, Donovan X. (October 31, 2019). "Bryan Stevenson's Moral Clarity: The human rights lawyer, whose memoir is the basis for the forthcoming film Just Mercy, has devoted his life to fighting for the convicted and the condemned". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  5. ^ Hobbs, Allyson; Freudenberger, Nell (July 17, 2018). "A Visit to Montgomery's Legacy Museum". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
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