Lynching linked to Valdosta marks centennial
Dec. 16—VALDOSTA — Dec.12 marked the 100th anniversary of the killing of a man whose death linked Valdosta to a wave of racist violence in Perry, Fla.
On Dec. 12, 1922, Arthur Young, a Black man who had been captured by a Florida mob in Valdosta, was shot to death in Taylor County, Fla., after being snatched from lawmen by an angry crowd that left his body dangling from a tree, according to newspaper reports from the era.
The death of white schoolteacher Ruby Hendry led to a mass hysteria in Perry's white community, resulting in the deaths of four Black residents and many buildings in the town's Black neighborhood being torched.
Researching the past
Tracking details about the "Perry Massacre," as it is sometimes called, is difficult. Files for The Valdosta Daily Times from mid-1922-25 are missing, not only from The Times archive but from all historical collections; they may have been destroyed in a fire decades ago.
The story of the massacre made national news, with dispatches from the Associated Press published far and wide in newspapers from Washington state to Washington, D.C., along with coverage from Southern newspapers whose reporters on the scene telephoned breaking coverage to their newsrooms.
The press coverage of the day was itself tainted with the widespread bigotry of the times. Young and another Black man accused of the teacher's death were routinely named in articles as "negroes" as opposed to white "people" and often assumed to be guilty even though the men never stood a trial.
What follows is a reconstruction of events using newspaper clippings from many sources and a more sober history, "Racial Violence and Competing Memory in Taylor County, Florida, 1922," a graduate thesis for Florida State University written in 2008 by Meghan H. Martinez.
What happened
On Dec. 2, 1922, schoolteacher Annie "Ruby" Hendry was found murdered in Perry; a freight train crew found her body near a creek. She had been beaten with a blunt instrument and her throat slit, Martinez said. A little cash — $14 — had also been taken from her.
On Dec. 5, police said they had a suspect, Charley Wright, a Black sawmill operator; authorities said they could link the murder weapons to him, the thesis said.
More than 300 people from Taylor and Madison counties formed posses to search for Wright, and even set a guard on entrances into those counties to look for Wright and any accomplices. Two self-styled "guards" killed a Black man unrelated to the manhunt, believing the unarmed man was pulling a gun on them.
In Perry's Black neighborhood, a church, a school building, a lodge and an "amusement hall" were burned in the following week by white persons, and another Black man was shot and his house burned because he was accused of writing "an improper note" to a white woman. Many Black families fled Perry, never to return.
The search for Wright reached into Georgia; the Bristol (Tenn.) Herald-Courier reported on Dec. 8 that Taylor County Sheriff Forrest Lipscomb was heading to Valdosta. A party of about 150 men accompanied by bloodhounds and now led by Lipscomb "took up the hunt yesterday noon that extended throughout the night and carried them late (to) the vicinity of Thomasville, and Valdosta, Ga.," the newspaper reported.
In a separate article in that same issue, the Herald-Courier reported that Arthur Young, described as a 30-year-old Black man and escaped convict, had been captured by posses at "Kindalou, Ga.," seven miles west of Valdosta. In its Dec. 8 issue, The Macon News reported that some of the Florida mob brought paraffin oil — known to have been used in burning people in lynching cases — to Valdosta.
The mob took Young to the Lowndes County Jail, but in the middle of the night, he was transferred to the jail in Madison, Fla. Wright was soon apprehended in Madison County, Fla.
A clipping from The Kingsport (Tenn.) Times of Dec. 8 says officers claimed Young admitted taking the money from Hendry. Many newspapers reported that Young and Wright were friends.
The deaths
Sheriff Lipscomb tried to move both suspects to the jail in Perry on Dec. 8, but things went from bad to worse quickly.
Young and Wright were taken from the sheriff's party by a mob of 3,000 to 5,000 people from north Florida and South Georgia, according to the thesis. Both men were "given an audience" and an opportunity to confess; Wright reportedly admitted killing Hendry but also said Young had nothing to do with the crime.
The Dec. 9 issue of The Macon Daily Telegraph reported what happened next under the heading "Charlie Wright, Alleged Slayer, Burns At Stake."
The mob strapped Wright to a stake. "Pine wood and grass were placed at his feet, and the works then set fire," the Daily Telegraph reported.
Young was returned to Sheriff Lipscomb alive.
On Dec. 12, Gov. Cary Hardee — a Perry native — told the sheriff to move Young to a jail outside of Taylor County for safekeeping. This time, a smaller crowd overpowered the sheriff and took Young from his custody. About seven miles from Perry on the road to Madison, he was shot and his body left dangling from a tree, The Macon News reported on Dec. 13.
"Sheriff Lipscomb would not discuss the lynching Tuesday night further than to admit that he had been overpowered on the road and (Young) taken," the Macon News reported.
Terry Richards is the senior reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times.
