RICHARD JAMES was lynched at this spot by a mob of Woodford Countians at the intersection of Midway and Frankfort roads on March 13, 1921, about the period this photo was taken. (Photo courtesy of Micah Lynn)

MICAH LYNN, DEE PARKER, AND MILAN BUSH, all of whom presented at the Feb. 22 Teach-In. (Photo by Sioux Finney)

MICAH LYNN AND MILAN BUSH, leaders of the Woodford County Remembrance Coalition, lead the second of four planned Teach-Ins, with this one held on Feb. 22, focused on the lynching of Richard James in 1921 and its impact on the Black community and the county in general. (Photo by Sioux Finney)

By Scott White

Woodford Sun Staff

On March 13, 1921, Richard James, a married, Black, 39-year-old farm laborer who was literate and owned his own home, was lynched by a mob of 50 men from Woodford County at the crossroads of Midway and Frankfort roads.

The Woodford County Remembrance Coalition (WCRC) told James’ story at its most recent Teach-In held last Sunday, Feb. 22, at the Woodford County Library – the second of four planned programs.

One of the goals of the WCRC, as it explained at its first event in December, is to work with the Equal Justice Initiative to install a memorial at the Woodford County Courthouse Annex telling the truth that Richard James was lynched. Similar lynching memorials have been placed in Frankfort, Shelbyville and Wayland, Kentucky.

This tragedy, until just a few years ago, when a small group led by Milan Bush and Micah Lynn organized in 2021 a remembrance ceremony at his graveside at Sons and Daughters cemetery in Midway began to pull back the curtain. And, according to Lynn, a Woodford County High School graduate who is soon to begin doctoral studies in history at Emory University, this act of terrorism was hidden intentionally.

Soon after it took place, the leadership of Woodford County, all white, sought to hide or justify it, claiming James was guilty of the crime for which he was being held at the Woodford County Jail, where the Courthouse Annex now sits.

Lynn points out that the history of lynching in the United States has sought to isolate the events to ignore the racist and systemic Jim Crow system from which lynchings arose, and thus ignore and deny the significant trauma lynchings carry into the Black and larger communities where they occurred.

The active choice by the WCRC to shine a light on the lynching of James, 125 years later, is to tell the full story of Woodford and Kentucky’s history, to not just reckon with the crime and its effects still rippling today, but to reconcile in building a better today and tomorrow.

“Projects like these restore dignity to men who were denied it when they were murdered. They educate our children so they know the whole truth of our commonwealth,” said Dee Parker, who was instrumental in the Wayland memorial in Floyd County, and is a native of Woodford County. “This project challenges our citizens and communities to confront the truth . . . even when it’s hard, and this is hard. So, that healing comes from no longer pretending it didn’t happen or was justified, and by giving voice to men like Richard James, to their stories so long silent, so we can build something different and better.”

Lynn and Bush invited Parker to speak at the Teach-In to help provide a larger understanding of the evil consequences, both at that time and today, of lynching and the historical context they arose from, and to provide a successful example of a community facing its past with the erection of a memorial.

“When we put up the marker in Floyd County, we were blessed with the support of most of the community, which was white, as there are so few African-Americans who live there, who were willing to hear the story and preserve it so all of Floyd’s history could be told,” Parker said. “It was put on private property, where the lynching took place, six years ago, and it has never been vandalized or tried to be taken down. The owner of the land said he would make sure nothing happened to it.”

Following Parker’s presentation, Lynn told the powerful and well-researched story of Richard James using contemporary sources like census records, the death certificate, newspaper accounts (inherently biased given they were white-owned), and mining the memories of the Black community.

James was born in Midway, where he grew up. He attended a Black school on Smith Street near Second Christian Church and was literate. He worked as a farm laborer and heavy work laborer, and at the time of his arrest in February 1921, was employed at Greenbaum Distillery. He was one of 10 children, and though he and his wife Nora did not have children, he had many uncles, aunts, siblings, nieces and nephews throughout Woodford and Central Kentucky.

James was charged with capital murder for the killing of two nightwatchmen at Greenbaum’s during a burglary. Several Black men were also arrested, and all were sent to other counties to be held prior to their trial. James was brought back to the Woodford County Jail and was tried by an all-white jury, which was unable to reach a verdict. Contemporary reports say one juror, for religious reasons, did not vote guilty as it would result in the death penalty.

Following the trial, James was returned to jail to await his retrial. On the night of March 13, 1921, the mob in a convoy of automobiles broke in, beat him up and bound him, placed him in one of the cars and drove to the intersection where they hung him from a large oak tree. The property was part of Pin Oak Farm and is now owned by the University of Kentucky.

This was the first lynching to occur in Kentucky following the passage of an anti-lynching law by the Kentucky Legislature, which provided that a jailer who failed to protect an inmate from a mob would be ejected from office. This happened here, though the white “powers that be” immediately installed the jailer’s wife as the new Woodford County jailer.

The contemporaneous news coverage in The Woodford Sun assumed James’ guilt and did not report any interviews from the Black community. This paper was complicit in the racist culture of its time.

One of the most poignant parts of the presentation was when Lynn reported the oral history taken of Helen Garner, whose great-grandmother was James’ sister, said, “I know (when I was growing up) they used to point out this big oak tree (and) this was where your uncle Richard was hung in this tree . . . and lightning struck it down.”

And, as Lynn said, the historical memory of Midway’s Black community was that James was innocent.

The next Teach-In will be advertised well in advance by the Sun, which is an active member of the WCRC.