Lynching of Will Bell

Lynching of Will Bell

Part of Jim Crow Era
News coverage of the Lynching of Will Bell
Date	January 29, 1922
Location	Pontotoc County, Mississippi
Participants	A white mob shoots Will Bell
Deaths	1

Will Arthur Bell was lynched by a mob in Pontotoc County, Mississippi as the local sheriff tried to move him to prevent the lynching. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary it was the 6th of 61 lynchings during 1922 in the United States.

Alleged attack

On Saturday, January 28, 1922, a young white woman was allegedly attacked by a Black man.

Arrest and lynching

Local police arrested 20-year-old Will Bell and Sheriff Blalock feared that he would be lynched before his trial. He made plans to secretly move Will Bell to the capital of Mississippi, Jackson. Early Sunday morning of January 29, 1922, the sheriff and his deputies made a desperate drive to get Bell to the departing night train but their car was stopped by a mob who used another vehicle to stop the police car. A man jumped out, pulled out a revolver and emptied it into Bell. After he dropped dead other members of the mob fired more shots into him.

Bibliography

Notes

References

• The New York Times (January 30, 1922). "Negro Prisoner Is Seized and Killed by Bullets". The New York Times. New York, NY. ISSN 1553-8095. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
• Robertson, Campbell (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
• "Accused Black Shot To Death". Times-Journal. Selma, Alabama: Frazier Titus Raiford. January 30, 1922. OCLC 1080316481.
• "Mississippi Mob Lynches Negro". The Union Daily Times. Union, South Carolina. January 30, 1922. pp. 1–4. ISSN 2471-0563. OCLC 13088988. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
• United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1926). "To Prevent and Punish the Crime of Lynching: Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on S. 121, Sixty-Ninth Congress, First Session, on Feb. 16, 1926". United States Government Publishing Office. Retrieved January 23, 2022.