| Source Type: | Newspaper |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wyandotte Echo |
| Place of publication: | Kansas City, Kansas |
| Date of publication: | 1935 |
| Transcript: | Montgomery, Ala- On July 11, Joe Spinner Johnson, Negro share cropper and a leader of the Share Croppers Union in Perry County, was called from his cotton patch by the landlord, B. J. Young, and the overseer, Locke Trainer, delivered into the hands of a vigilante gang, and murdered. The lynching of Johnson is one of the many secret lynchings that are not reported in the white press. The majority of these lynchings never come to light. VICTIM BOUND LIKE A HOG Johnson was bound hog-fashion with a board behind his neck and hands and feet tied in front of him, brutally beaten and carrie dot the Selma, Dallas County, jail. About 11 o’clock that night the inmates heard a terrible commotion, beating and screaming which lasted until 12 o’clock. The next morning Joe Johnson was not in jail. A few days later his mutilated body was found in a a field near a crossroads around Greensboro. The coroner did not hold an inquest, did not identify the body, did not turn it over to the family for burial. The landlords dumped it in a secret grave to keep the information from getting out. Friends of Joe Johnson, however, recognized the body. |