Mary Turner 

lived c.1899 – May 19, 1918.

A nineteen-year-old black woman, lynched in Lowndes County, Georgia.

Eight months pregnant, Turner and her child were murdered after she publicly denounced the unlawful extrajudicial killing of her husband, Hazel Turner, by a mob.

On the evening of May 16, 1918, 25-year-old white planter Hampton Smith, known to abuse and beat his workers, was shot and killed on the plantation by one of his black workers, 18-year-old Sidney Johnson. As the owner of the Old Joyce Place, Smith’s notoriety as an unusually severe boss made recruiting workers difficult. Smith resolved the labor shortage through the use of convict labor; he paid Sidney Johnson’s $30 fine (Johnson had been convicted of playing dice) and forced him to work on his plantation.

Johnson endured several beatings at the hands of Smith. Days before Smith’s killing, Johnson had been severely beaten by Smith for refusing to work while he was sick. Smith also had a history with Hayes and Mary Turner: in one incident, Hayes was sentenced to the chain gang when he threatened Smith for beating his wife, Mary.

Smith’s murder was followed by a week-long mob-driven manhunt in which at least 13 people were killed. Among those whom the mob killed was another black man, Hayes Turner, who was seized from custody after his arrest on the morning of May 18, 1918 and lynched. Distraught, his eight-month pregnant wife Mary denied that her husband had been involved in Smith’s killing, publicly opposed her husband’s murder, and threatened to have members of the mob arrested. The mob then turned against her, determined to “teach her a lesson”.

Although she fled when she learned of the mob’s intent, she was nevertheless captured at noon on May 19. The mob of several hundred brought her to Folsom Bridge over the Little River, which separates Brooks and Lowndes counties. The mob then tied her ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil and set her on fire.

While Turner was still alive, a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife. Her unborn child fell on the ground, where it gave a cry before it was stomped on and crushed. Finally, Turner’s body was riddled with hundreds of bullets. Mary Turner and her child were cut down and buried near the tree, with a whiskey bottle marking the grave.

According to Philip Dray, “There, before a crowd that included women and children, Mary was stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground, gave a cry, and was stomped to death. The Constitution’s coverage of the killing was subheaded-lined: ‘Fury of the People Is Unrestrained.’

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