Life of Ryland Randolph

Case(s)
Source Type: Visual Culture
Author: Gladys Ward
Publisher: University of Alabama
Place of publication: Tuscaloosa, AL
Transcript:

inefficiency of the peace officers of the County. One negro, charged with participation in the murder of Findley, was arrested and put in jail in Tuscaloosa. As he knew many of the mob, he was an important witness. He was taken from the jail by a mob and murdered in front of the old State House. The ringleader of the negroes escaped at the time. About twelve months later he was traced to Hale County where he was regarded with suspicion, because he wore a. revolver even while working the field. After a visit of two Tuscaloosa men to that county, he was found dead by the roadside. Randolph’s friends felt that the report made by the State investigators, Dalton and Miller, and published in the State Journal slandered him. The report stated that Randolph was “the head devil of all the lawlessness that has afflicted and brought disgrace on the County and City of Tuscaloosa” Dalton and Miller asserted that they had met with all classes of citizens in Tuscaloosa, whites, blacks, Democrats, Republicans, county officers, merchants, lawyers, mechanics, hotel keepers, and planters, and not a human being was heard to speak of Randolph except in terms