Neal, Claude, -1934

Claude Neal (b. 1911 – d. October 26, 1934) was a 23-year-old African-American farmhand who was arrested in Jackson County, Florida, on October 19, 1934, for allegedly raping and killing Lola Cannady, a 19-year-old white woman missing since the preceding night. Circumstantial evidence was collected against him, but nothing directly linked him to the crime. When the news got out about his arrest, white lynch mobs began to form. In order to keep Neal safe, County Sheriff Flake Chambliss moved him between multiple jails, including the county jail at Brewton, Alabama, 100 miles (160 km) away. But a lynch mob of about 100 white men from Jackson County heard where he was, and brought him back to Jackson County. The time and place of the lynching were provided to the news media in advance and reported on nationwide, attracting a huge crowd.: 126  The spectacle lynching had been announced to take place at the Cannady farm, but the crowd had grown unruly, and a smaller group murdered Neal in secret. He was tortured and mutilated before being hanged by the instigators at a site along the Chattahoochee River, near Greenwood, Florida. They tied his body to the back of their truck and dragged his corpse to the Cannady farm, where a white crowd estimated at 2,000 attacked the corpse by stabbing it with sticks and knives. Later that night Neal's body was hanged from a tree in the courthouse square. When the sheriff discovered it in the morning, he cut it down. A large group of white people went to the courthouse in Marianna, demanding that the body be hanged again so they could see it. When the sheriff refused, they began rioting, assaulting the courthouse, attacking black people in the area, injuring 200, and looting and burning houses. The body was displayed on the courthouse steps so that anyone interested could see it. In the next few days, white people rioted in an attempt to drive black people from the county, injuring an estimated 200 persons, including two police, and destroying black-owned property. Eventually, Governor David Sholtz called in more than 100 troops of the National Guard to suppress the white rioting.