It was only four times. You see,Tallahassee was a tolerant town for the era, at least compared to other parts of Florida. It only lynched four men in the years between Reconstruction and 1940.
At least only four described in official records.
Ernest Ponder and Richard Hawkins. — Lynched in 1937 along Jacksonville Highway outside of town after allegedly stabbing a police officer.
Mick Morris. — Lynched in a Tallahassee jail-yard tree in 1909 before he could be legally executed for the murder of the local sheriff.
Pierce Taylor. — Lynched in a Tallahassee jail-yard tree in 1897 after allegedly assaulting an unmarried woman.
It was a small number compared to the 20 people murdered over the same period in Polk County and 33 in Orange County. Vigilante ways ran deeper in Central Florida, despite the theme-park luster that has diluted this history today.
A book about the dark history of the central Florida region won journalist Gilbert King a Pulitzer Prize in 2013 and introduced many Americans to the unfamiliar story of Sunshine State racism.
By comparison, Tallahassee and Leon County were mild.
You see, it was only four times.
Tallahassee only unleashed the savagery of mob violence four times while local authorities pretended to be overwhelmed. It only broke faith with the Constitution and the bonds of law four times over the decades of Jim Crow.
Only four times was the seat of state government unable to marshal sufficient force to stop murderous lawlessness in its own city.
Only four times did we pretend it didn’t really matter.
Only four times.
Today, the metal memorials laid out in Montgomery at the new Peace & Justice Center include a solemn row for the Florida counties where lynchings occurred. They sit like rusting coffins waiting in the grass beside a Center where matching metal boxes hang from an extensive ceiling, evoking an architect’s impression of bodies dangling in the sky.
These boxes on the lawn are waiting for local people in places like Tallahassee to claim them and take them back to the counties whose names are etched on each one. — Take them back for small local memorials like the one in Montgomery.
Yes, one for Polk and one for Orange. Another for Leon. One for every Florida county where the brutal outrage occurred.
When Jim and I visited this last weekend, there was no evidence yet that any Florida county has made a serious effort to claim them. Every Florida box remains there on the ground on a hilltop overlooking the first capital of the Confederacy.
Maybe Leon County never will. You see, it was only four times.
Robert Craig Waters 