Unidentified AMP051-19590900-000

Full Name

Unidentified AMP051-19590900-000

Victim Profile

Unidentified AMP051-19590900-000

Biography

In September 1959 or 1960, an unidentified Black male, most likely between twelve and fourteen years old, was hanged on the porch of his home in the Black community in Tallassee by a group of three to twelve white men wearing white hoods. This child lived in downtown Tallassee, in a segregated Black neighborhood of tightly clustered homes often called “The Alley.” He would have attended the only school for Black children in Tallassee, R. R. Moton School (present-day Southside Middle School), and worshipped at one of two Black churches in the community, Mount Zion Baptist or St. Paul’s Methodist. The history of this lynching comes from Mrs. Sylvia Phillips who witnessed it as a young girl, around four or five years of age. Mrs.Phillips’s testimony is the primary source of information about this crime. She cannot recall the exact age of the victim but believes he was between the ages of twelve to fourteen. Ms. Phillips remembers Black individuals running into their homes and hiding for safety as the white men entered the neighborhood. She hid under her great-aunt’s porch and witnessed the group of white men pull the victim from his home, attacking him and leaving him hanging on his porch. Ms. Phillips has dedicated much of her life to remembering this individual and continues actively searching for his name and identity.

Documented or Attempted

Documented

Birth Date

N/A

County of Birth; County of Death

N/A; Elmore County

Death Date

Circa 1959

Race

Black

Sex

Male

Researchers

Mariska Perdick

Case Number

AMP051-19590900-000

Identified by:

Alabama Memory Project