African American Historical Museum looking for the descendants of Polk lynching victims

MULBERRY – Decades ago, down by the old railroad station and the current phosphate museum, there was a large Mulberry tree that leant its name to the town - a tree locals knew was the site of numerous lynchings.

“Back in the days when rowdy miners here took the law in their own hands, they used this tree for lynchings,” local historian Hampton Dunn wrote in a 1960 article when the tree was dying. “An official hanging or two also occurred here. Many bullets have ripped into the tree trunk, some of them marks of coups de grace over lynching victims.”

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Now the African American Historical Museum in Lakeland wants to mark where records show at least half a dozen men were hanged or shot at the tree or nearby, along with spots throughout Polk County where records show at least 21 men were murdered. The organization is also hoping to track down the descendants of those who died “without due process at the hands of parties unknown,” as the New York Negro World newspaper put it in 1920.

According to a report by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, which houses a museum dedicated to people lynched between Reconstruction, following the Civil War, and the years immediately after World War II, Polk County ranked 21st in the South and third in Florida for lynchings.

At least 20 Black men were hanged, burned and/or shot repeatedly within days of being accused of a crime and almost always without the benefit of trial. EJI said there were nearly 4,400 “racial terror lynchings” in 12 Southern states during that time period.

'THREE WERE LYNCHED'

A May 20, 1903, Los Angeles Herald article titled, “THREE WERE LYNCHED — How Florida Mob Dealt Out Justice to White Man and Two Negroes,” details the account of a Mulberry lynching by prominent officials, none of whom apparently hid their identity. An account of the incident is also detailed in the book, "Yesterday's Polk County."

A man named Barney Brown had campaigned heavily for prohibition — outlawing the sale of alcohol — and the referendum passed. Amos Randall, a white man who allegedly ran a bootleg liquor business, was the prime suspect when Brown was murdered after the election.

“Monday night, while Brown was en route home, he was shot from ambush and his throat-cut,” the article states. “The people of Mulberry became enraged and yesterday secured evidence, which led them to believe that Randall had employed the negroes to kill Brown.”

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According to Yesterday's Polk County, Henry Golden (or Gordon) was made to confess. An angry mob then chanted, "Kill him! Kill him!"

On the way to Randall's home, the mob encountered Dan Kelly (or Kennedy). He proclaimed his innocence but "was nevertheless tied to a tree and a general fusillade of bullets followed, mutilating the body."

Randall was found asleep at his home and attempted to escape, and was shot as he ran from his home. Bloodied, he crawled under a church. He was found, dragged out and shot dozens of times.

“It is said the work was done by a mob of about fifty unmasked men, many of them being prominent in the county,” the Los Angeles Herald article stated.

No one was ever charged with the lynching.

According to a list provided by the African American Historical Museum, at least two other men were lynched in Mulberry:

• John Bapes - lynched on August 21, 1906

• Robert Davis, lynched on June 27, 1900

More than a dozen additional lynchings were carried out throughout the county.

At least 21 lynched in Polk County

African American Historical Museum Lakeland, Inc. and its coalition members want to talk with relatives or anyone who has knowledge of the named or unidentified African American men lynched in Polk County from 1877 through 1950.

"We knew about the Mulberry hanging tree coming up in the community," said Doris Moore Bailey, who is organizing the effort to find the descendants of those lynched, gather soil from the spots where the lynchings happened and sponsoring an essay contest for students.

“The purpose of this fact finding and truth-telling mission is to help raise local consciousness of racial history and help foster dialogue about the connections to contemporary issues, and further develop a communal identity that prioritizes historical truth-telling and to foster healing,” she said.

Moore Bailey added that she learned only this year from a cousin that her own great-grandfather survived a lynching attempt in Alabama.

"When they left him, they left him for dead, but he lived," Moore Bailey said. "That brings home this whole effort ... when you have those situations happening. We have to be able to heal."

EJI officials say they believe it is critically important to confront America’s history of racial terror lynching. They have memorials available for communities to display and they also collect soil samples from the sites of lynchings and house them at the museum in Montgomery.

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“Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials,” Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, wrote in a 2015 report. “These lynchings were terrorism ... these murders were carried out with impunity, sometimes in broad daylight, often ‘on the courthouse lawn.’”

Stevenson added that lynchings reinforced a legacy of racial inequality that has never been adequately addressed in America and is now tangled with the current criminal justice system "in profound and important ways that continue to contaminate the integrity and fairness of the justice system."

Records show the last lynching in Polk County took place on March 14, 1921, when William Bowles, a Black man accused of making an improper remark to a young white woman, was hanged by a mob between Bartow and Eagle Lake. A newspaper article at the time stated two deputy sheriffs had arrested Bowles and were taking him to the county jail when they were stopped by vigilantes.

“They were held up by a mob of armed men, overpowered and the negro was taken from them,” the article states. “The black was hanged to a tree near the roadside.”

To submit stories about lynchings in Polk County for the Equal Justice Initiative project, contact Doris Moore Baily can be reached at bailey.dmb@gmail.com.

List of lynching victims

This list of victims was compiled by the Northwest Social Research Group and identifies 21 deaths in Polk County. All but three were black men; all were killed by white mobs:

• Daniel Mann (white), accused of murder, May 15, 1886.

• Lon Mann (white), accused of murder, May 15, 1886.

• Unidentified Black man, accused of rape, May 25, 1895.

• Unidentified Black man, accused of rape, May 25, 1895.

• Unidentified Black man, accused of rape, May 25, 1895.

• Robert Davis, accused of murder, June 27, 1900.

• Frederick Rochelle, accused of rape and murder, May 29, 1901.

• Amos Randall (white), accused of murder, May 20, 1903.

• Henry Gordon, accused of murder, May 20, 1903.

• John Black, accused of murder, July 26, 1906.

• Will Hagin, accused of murder, July 26, 1906.

• John Bapes, accused of attempted murder, Aug. 20 or 21, 1906.

• Jack Wade (aka Jacob Nader), accused of attempted rape, Feb. 13, 1909.

• Charles Scarborough, accused of attempted rape, April 28, 1909.

• Samuel McIntosh, accused of attempted murder, July 9, 1910.

• Lewis Peck, accused of murderous assault, Jan. 12, 1914.

• Unidentified Peck companion, accused of “murderous assault,” Jan. 12, 1914.

• James Woodson, accused of attempted rape, May 18, 1914.

• Henry Scott, accused of insulting a white woman, May 7 or 8, 1920.

• William Bowles, accused of making an improper remark to a white woman, March 14, 1921.

Ledger reporter Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802-7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: African American Historical Museum seeks descendants of lynching victims