'People should be aware': Lynchings commemorated 117 years later

The corner of 11th Street and Broadway now has such a cosmopolitan vibe that it's hard to imagine it as the site of two of the city's most brutal lynchings.

But on June 1, 1896, two black men were killed at the location, their bodies left hanging like "strange fruit" from a tree .

Both victims are now buried in unmarked paupers' graves at the Porterdale Cemetery, according to curators at the Columbus Black History Museum and Archives.

On Saturday, the 117th anniversary of the lynchings, a group of about 40 people stood at the intersection and memorialized the two victims -- Jesse Slayton and Will Miles.

They recounted the story of how their bodies were dragged from legal authorities and mutilated by an angry white mob.

"If we hide these things, people walk up and down these streets as they are doing right now unaware of what occurred here 117 years ago," said Richard Gardiner, assistant professor of history education at Columbus State University and guest speaker for the memorial service. "That should change. People should be aware."

The event was sponsored by the Columbus Black History Museum and Archives, where Johnnie C. Warner Jr. is the director. The museum, at 315 Eighth St., wants to place a marker in the median to remember the moment in history.

As shoppers milled about the open markets on the east side of Broadway, Gardiner focused on why it is important not to ignore history -- the good, the bad and the ugly.

He pointed to an enlarged photo of the slain men hanging from a huge tree and said, "My friends, this right here is ugly."

'Swift Justice'

The Enquirer-Sun, in an 1896 article titled "Swift Justice," reported the gory details of the lynchings.

"From limbs of the same tree right in the heart of the city and under the bright canopy of the mid-day sun now hang the bodies of Jessie Slayton and Will Miles," the article said in the opening paragraph.

Slayton was arrested four days before the lynching for allegedly assaulting a white woman, according to the article. Thursday night passed with no incident, but by Friday night Gov. William Yates Atkinson had sent the Columbus Guards and Browne Fencibles at the request of local authorities. On Saturday, it was determined that the guards were no longer needed, and Slayton was left unprotected.

On the morning of the lynchings, he was in court. But the proceedings were interrupted when an angry mob burst through the doors.

Deputies tried to stop the mob, the Enquirer-Sun reported, but their efforts were in vain. Slayton was terrified before being dragged from the courtroom, the paper reported.

"As the sight of this gruesome implement of his coming death greeted the prisoner's eyes, they seem to turn green, horrible shrieks came from his frothy mouth and in his delirium of fear, he crawled upon the deserted rostrum and behind the judge's desk."

The mob slipped a noose around Slayton's neck and shot him at the top of the stairs.

"The judge looked on mute and powerless," according to the article.

The mob continued to shoot Slayton's body as he was dragged down Broadway from 10th to 11th Street, his body whirling in the dust of the street, according to the article. The crowd hung his body from a tree and continued to riddle it with bullets.

Miles, meanwhile, had been sitting in jail for three years for allegedly attempting to assault another white woman. He had been tried, but the case ended in a mistrial. He was scheduled for another trial, according to a 1940 article written in The Columbus Magazine.

After lynching Slayton, the mob went to the jail to apprehend Miles. The jailer pleaded with the infuriated crowd, but he eventually gave in to its demands. Miles was taken from the jail and dragged to the spot where Slayton was killed. As he saw his fate, his eyes filled with fright, the article said.

He was lynched on the same tree, and placards were pinned on both bodies that read: "All cases of this kind shall be threatened likewise."

According to the article in Columbus Magazine: "Both deeds were done in broad daylight, within a half-hour of each other. No witness could be produced to testify as to the identity of a single member of the mob. The grand jury investigation afterwards came to naught. There were no indictments, no trials."

Time to atone

Organizers of Saturday's memorial said it's time that the community atone for the two men's deaths.

On Tuesday, Lakesha Stringer and Jerome Lawson, curators at the black history museum, appeared before the City Council and requested an apology for the lynchings. They said the men were murdered while in city custody and authorities were never held accountable.

Warner, director of the black history museum, said in a recent interview that the city's black history has been subdued for political reasons. He said people, both black and white, just want to move on, but the past is inescapable.

"They don't think about the fact that these two men were human beings, they were citizens of the United States at that time," he said. For the community to ignore the history, "that's saying it's OK to beat, to kill, to destroy."

To help preserve history, Columbus attorney Derrell Dowdell presented Warner a check for $5,000. "Love will always conquer hate," Dowdell told the crowd. "What I have seen from this perspective -- different races, different genders -- is all about love. Black history is really world history."

Dowdell said he wasn't there as a lawyer to atone for a horrible event. He was there to support a museum that has benefitted his two children.

"They do this every day, every month, every year," he said of the museum's preservation of history.

Gardiner, the CSU professor, questioned the legitimacy of the legal charges against Slayton and Miles.

He said 1896 was a time in U.S. history when racial tensions were incredibly high, and the Ku Klux Klan used intimidation to keep blacks "in their place."

"One of the most sensitive of all allegations was for a black man to have interest in any way, shape, or form in a white woman," he said in an interview prior to the event. "And so the vast majority of lynchings that occurred had attached to them an accusation of a black men with sexual interest in a white woman. And both of these men were accused of that."

Some may state the problem will just go away if people forget about it. Gardiner said it would be a mistake to close your eyes to it.

"This is not a scar on the city," he said. "This is an opportunity to teach, to instruct the young people of this community, white, black and otherwise of where we came from and where we need to go."

Gardiner noted that sad events are remembered with markers all across the Chattahoochee Valley. Just across Dillingham Street Bridge, a marker notes that six Indians were hanged. At Fort Mitchell, a marker commemorates the Trail of Tears, which led to the removal of Creek Indians from the area. The Andersonville Prison Historic Site marks where almost 13,000 American prisoners of war died at the Confederate prison during the Civil War.

Stringer said the memorial service is just one way to make a difference. But the community needs to do more to stand against violence -- both past and present.

"This is what we've accepted as normal," she said. "And that's what we've molded in our children. By turning a blind eye to it, we're saying this is okay."

At the end of the program, two doves were released -- for Slayton and Miles.

This story was originally published June 1, 2013 at 10:43 PM with the headline "'People should be aware': Lynchings commemorated 117 years later."