Between Reconstruction and World War II, Equal Justice Initiative has documented more than 4400 racial terror lynchings of African Americans, “a widely supported campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation.” Many counties in Maryland also were the sites of these extrajudicial killings. Prince George’s County was the site of at least four lynchings. Learn more about these four men below, and join us in saying their names.
Thomas Juricks
Lynched Oct. 12, 1869 · Piscataway, Maryland
Thomas Juricks was a laborer, husband and father of six who had recently moved his family to the Washington, D.C., area. After a local teacher was assaulted, Juricks was taken into custody despite a lack of evidence identifying him as the attacker. While authorities were transporting him to Upper Marlboro, a masked mob seized and lynched him. No one was ever brought to trial for his murder.
John Henry Scott
Lynched March 23, 1875 · Prince George’s County, Maryland
John Henry Scott was a 23-year-old worker who had been employed by and lived with the Nelson family for about a year. After being accused of assaulting Mrs. Nelson, Scott was arrested and taken toward the Upper Marlboro jail. A crowd of more than 100 people had gathered there, and Scott was handed over to the mob, taken away and lynched. A coroner’s jury later determined that he had been killed by “persons unknown.”
Read John Henry Scott’s story →
Michael Green
Lynched Sept. 1, 1878 · Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Michael Green, an African American worker, was being held in the Upper Marlboro jail after being accused of assault when a masked mob broke into the jail and abducted him. They took him about a mile outside town, where he was lynched. Green is buried on the west lawn of the former jail, alongside two other victims of racial terror.
Stephen Williams
Lynched Oct. 20, 1894 · Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Stephen Williams was arrested after being accused of assaulting a local woman. While he was being held in the Upper Marlboro jail, an armed mob broke through the jail’s brickwork, seized Williams and dragged him from the building. He was taken to a nearby bridge and lynched. As with earlier lynchings in Prince George’s County, the coroner’s jury attributed his death to “parties unknown.”