Two Negroes Lynched Near Mobile

• Cornelius Robinson and William Thompson

TWO NEGROES LYNCHED NEAR MOBILE, Mobile, Oct 6. The crimes committed upon Edna May Fowler, Lillian May Savell, Ruth Sossamer, and attempted on others whose names are not given, were avenged by a party of fortyfive men this afternoon at 12:35 o’clock in a lonely place just off the Holt road, in the neighborhood of Prichards station. The leaders ordered the men, who were all armed with revolvers, shot guns and Winchester rifles, not to fire a shot and the orders were carried out : HOW NEGROES WERE LYNCHED..1. – Robinson, who committed the first crimes that startled the peo; pie of Mobile, and worked them up into a fury, bordering on madness, was first strung up.. A long half-inch ‘ rope was thrown over the northside of a liveoak tree, and according to the statements of the leaders he confessed,; and was then swung into eternity, ” He said nothing, and slowly -strangled to death after being strung up. Cornelius Robinson, alias Dick Robinson,” who had already been prepared by men in the mob to meet his maker, was jerked up a distance of about 15 feet, and he suffered death from strangulation. Robinson, according to one of the leaders, said that he confessed to him, and called a reporter over to hear it, but this statement Robinson afterwards denied, and said that he was not’ the man. His actions after the rope was placed over, his neck showed his guilt, however. His body was swung up at 12:38 o’clock, and death ensued a short time afterwards. i The hanging of the negroes was conducted in a very quiet manner, and during the time that the work was being done hardly a word was spoken. At one time oneman in the crowd wanted to hurry the lynching, but he was stopped un til all the arrangements were complete.'” There were only twenty- five men who took part in – tieing the hands of the riegroes, arranging the rope in the tree and tieing the noose. The negro Thompson was very sullen from the time that he was taken off the train until the rope was placed around him. In fact neither of the men showed -any signs of fear. v Robinson, the black one, saying all the time that he was going to heaven. At another time during the march of the crowd of men from the train to the tree which had been selected for the work some of them became vexed at the delay for fear that the, negroes in that vicinity might “cause some trouble, but everything was, done so quietly that no trouble of any kind occurred. From the time that Sheriff Pow ers left Selma, Ala., this morning at an early hour,- he looked for trouble,’, and was consequently very nervous. Several times reports were received on the train that the men would be waiting at stations along the line ready to take the men and lynch them.

“Two Negroes Lynched Near Mobile.” Franklin County Times (Russellville, Alabama), October 18, 1906.