Just after one midnight last week Sheriff Louis Corbitt of Henry County, Ala. and Jailer J. N. Corbitt. his father, asleep in their first-floor bedrooms below the rooms at Abbeville that serve as county jail, were awakened by a great racket outside. Before they could get up to investigate, a mob of 50 armed farmers burst in, ordered them to stay where they were. As sheriff and jailer sat abed looking sleepy-eyed into grim Henry County faces, part of the mob marched upstairs, broke into the jail. Going straight to the bullpen occupied by six cowering blackamoors, they broke into it with a crowbar. From it they dragged strapping 18-year-old Wes Johnson, itinerant Henry County farm laborer, who had been arrested day before for raping the young wife of a farmer at Tumbleton, 22 mi. away.
With Negro Johnson in tow the mob stomped out, drove off toward Tumbleton in 25 automobiles. After day broke City Editor Joseph David (“Red”) Brown of the Dothan Eagle received a telephone tip that Negro Johnson’s body could be found near the Tumbleton farm home of Rupert Bond in which the alleged attack had taken place. Editor Brown grabbed his camera and dashed off for Tumbleton. There on the brink of a sparsely wooded ravine, 50 yd. from Farmer Bond’s house, he found the bullet-riddled body of Negro Johnson. Tight-lipped farmers, who seemed to be awaiting his arrival, obligingly took hold of a rope that was tightly looped around the neck, hoisted the body high over the limb of a tree so that Editor Brown could make a more vivid camera record of 1937’s No. 1 lynching.* At last week’s end Henry County was buzzing with excitement. A special grand jury, on orders of Governor Bibb Graves, began taking testimony. Sheriff Corbitt, threatened with impeachment by Governor Graves, was quoted as saying he could and would name the owners of no less than 15 of the faces his sleepy eyes recognized in his bedroom. Nevertheless, the grand jury did not indict after hearing Sheriff Corbitt’s testimony.
*1936 lynchings: Alabama none; other States nine.