May 1918 lynchings

On May 16, 1918, Hampton Smith, a white plantation owner near Morven, Georgia, was shot and killed by Sidney Johnson, a Black worker whom Smith had obtained through the convict-leasing system and who had endured repeated beatings from him. Smith was known among Black workers for being abusive; among others he had beaten was Mary Turner, whose husband Hayes Turner had subsequently threatened Smith and was convicted and sentenced to a chain gang. After the shooting, Johnson fled and hid in Valdosta, Georgia, while a large manhunt formed, conducted mostly by a white mob in Brooks County.

Over the following two weeks, white mobs killed at least 13 Black people in Brooks and Lowndes counties. Victims included Will Head and Will Thompson, lynched on May 17; Julius Jones, lynched near Barney; Chime Riley, drowned in the Little River despite having no known connection to Smith; and Sidney Johnson himself, who was killed in a shootout with Valdosta police on May 18 after wounding several officers, after which a mob mutilated his body, dragged it behind a car, and burned it. Hayes Turner was arrested on May 18 and, while ostensibly being transferred between jails, was seized by a mob and lynched near Okapilco Creek in Brooks County. His body remained hanging until Monday.

Mary Turner, Hayes Turner's wife, was eight months pregnant. After her husband's lynching, she publicly denounced the killing, denied his involvement in Smith's murder, and threatened to have mob members arrested. In response, a mob of several hundred captured her on May 19 near Folsom Bridge over the Little River. According to NAACP investigator Walter F. White, she was tied and hung upside down by her ankles, doused with gasoline and set on fire, and her abdomen was cut open with a knife. Her unborn child fell to the ground and was killed when a mob member crushed its head with his heel. The crowd then shot Turner's body repeatedly. She was buried near the tree with a whiskey bottle marking the grave. No one was ever charged in her killing.

The NAACP dispatched Walter F. White to investigate the Brooks-Lowndes lynchings; his report to Georgia Governor Hugh Dorsey named two instigators and 15 participants, but no prosecutions resulted. More than 500 Black residents fled the area afterward, despite threats against those attempting to leave. A man named Leamon Wright was later tried and convicted in Savannah, Georgia, for Hampton Smith's murder and the assault on his wife, and was executed by hanging in 1921; he maintained his innocence to his death.

The case became a focal point in NAACP anti-lynching campaigns for decades and contributed to advocacy for federal anti-lynching legislation, including the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the House in 1922 but was repeatedly filibustered in the Senate. A Georgia historical marker memorializing Mary Turner and the lynching rampage was dedicated in 2010; it has since been repeatedly vandalized with gunfire and vehicle damage, and was ultimately relocated.