The case in question involved John Henry James – a Black man who sold ice cream in Charlottesville. In 1898 a 20-year-old woman from a prominent white family said she had been sexually assaulted and identified James as her attacker. Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley tells what happened next.
“He was taken into custody, and he was removed from Albemarle County to Staunton to spend the night because of a fear that there would be racial violence directed toward him," Hingeley says.
The following day he was headed back to Charlottesville for a hearing when a mob stopped the train on which he was riding.
“He was taken to a nearby locust tree, lynched, and then his body was shot multiple times, and word came to the grand jury that he was killed. Despite that, the grand jury issued the indictment.”
The case against James was weak at best.
“We have an account that Mr. James as he was being murdered proclaimed his innocence. Another account said that he confessed," Hingeley explains. "The person who claimed to be assaulted said that she fought off her attacker and she had scratched his face and his neck, and so on. We don’t have any evidence that Mr. James showed any signs of having been attacked.”
Even the crime is in doubt. The victim claimed she fought-off her attacker, but the Commonwealth’s Attorney at the time claimed this was one of the most atrocious rapes ever committed.
So why did the grand jury decide to indict a dead man? Hingeley believes they were trying to protect the mob from charges of murder.
“The lynching was accomplished by a mob of 150 people, and the 150 people took no pains whatsoever to disguise their identity, and yet the justice system had an inquiry into John Henry James death, and it concluded that he had met his death at the hands of persons unknown. What the justice system was doing was putting a formal accusation against John Henry James on the record, as if to justify the extra-judicial killing of John Henry James.”
Now, he’ll ask to have that indictment thrown out
“The objective here is to remember our history so that we can work harder to eradicate racial injustice going forward.”
Little is known about John Henry James, but a plaque at the local courthouse describes his fate, and he’s memorialized at the National Center for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
