H. J. Williams, who was born in 1910 and lived mostly in Alabama, was interviewed in the 1990s about living in the segregated South. Williams recalls a lynching in Yazoo County, Mississippi in this excerpt of the interview.
MAUSIKI SCALES (INTERVIEWER): Did they have lynchings down here that you recall?
H. J. WILLIAMS: Oh yeah, they had some lynchings. Yeah. Sure. I can take you to a place right on there on Shorty Creek where they lynched a man. That’s right. Hung him to a limb. Sure did. Oh yeah. That’s right. There was lynching back then in those days.
MAUSIKI SCALES: Why did they hang him?
H. J. WILLIAMS: Huh?
MAUSIKI SCALES: Why did they hang him?
H. J. WILLIAMS: Well, they claim that he was a friend to a white lady. That’s what they claim. Now whether it was true or not, I don’t know and I haven’t heard anybody else say they knowed, but that’s what they claimed and they lynched him. That’s right. Well, due to the fact as I was coming up, back in those days I remember this.... 1
Facing History & Ourselves, “H. J. Williams Recalls Lynching in Yazoo County, Mississippi,” last updated April 29, 2022.
This reading contains text not authored by Facing History & Ourselves. See footnotes for source information.
