Lynching of Josh Shorter

Part of a series on the
Nadir of American race relations
Violence in the 1906 Atlanta race massacre
Historical background Reconstruction era Voter suppression Disfranchisement Redeemers Compromise of 1877 Jim Crow laws Segregation Anti-miscegenation laws Convict leasing
Practices Common actions Expulsions of African Americans Lynchings Lynching postcards Sundown town Whitecapping Vigilante groups Black Legion Indiana White Caps Ku Klux Klan Red Shirts
Lynchings Andrew Richards Michael Green Nevlin Porter and Johnson Spencer Eliza Woods Amos Miller George Meadows Joe Vermillion Jim Taylor Joe Coe People's Grocery Ephraim Grizzard Alfred Blount Samuel J. Bush Stephen Williams Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker John Henry James Sam Hose George Ward David Wyatt Marie Thompson Watkinsville Ed Johnson William Burns Walker family Laura and L. D. Nelson King Johnson John Evans Jesse Washington Newberry Six Anthony Crawford Ell Persons Jim McIlherron George Taylor John Hartfield 1920 Duluth James Harvey and Joe Jordan Joe Pullen
Massacres and riots Opelousas massacre Rock Springs massacre Thibodaux massacre Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895 Phoenix election riot Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Pana riot Robert Charles riots Evansville race riot Atlanta Massacre of 1906 Springfield race riot of 1908 Johnson–Jeffries riots 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County 1917 Chester race riot East St. Louis riots Elaine massacre Red Summer Chicago race riot of 1919 Washington race riot of 1919 Ocoee massacre Tulsa race massacre Perry race riot Rosewood massacre
Reactions Anti-lynching movement Exodusters movement Great Migration Back to Africa movement
Related topics Black genocide Civil rights movement (1865–1896) Civil rights movement (1896–1954) Mass racial violence in the United States
v t e

Josh Shorter was an African-American man who was lynched in Eufaula, Alabama, or between Eufaula and Georgetown, Georgia, on the afternoon of Wednesday June 8th, 1881.

The lynching is described in an article in The Weekly News and Advertiser, a newspaper published in Georgia, on Saturday June 18, 1881: "A special telegram from Eufaula under date of the 9th, states that a most villainous outrage was committed upon a respectable white girl, twelve years old, by Josh Shorter, a negro, near that city, on Wednesday afternoon. A diligent pursuit by a large party resulted in his capture across the river in Georgia. He was immediately carried to the Alabama side, and upon the Sheriff’s attempting to get possession of him, they hurried him back to Georgia with a large crowd and hung him to a limb of a largo tree, about midway between Eufaula and Georgetown."^[1]

The Legacy of Lynching website marks his murder as occurring in Eufaula: "name: Josh Shorter, Jun 1881; description: from riverbank about 200 yards above city bridge".^[2]

References