In the past I have indirectly discussed and/or referred to the 1946 lynching of John C. Jones here in Minden. About five or six years ago, Professor Chris Waldrep came to Minden to research the killing. Today, there are two more researchers in the community working on this case. I learned from them that Professor Waldrep has posted all the material he obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the National Archives to the website for one of his courses. I had been to the National Archives and seen that file before, but never the DOJ and FBI info, so I've been digging up local bones and opening local closets in that material this morning. I wanted to share the link with any local people who might be interested. I can tell you that there are thousands of pages, much of it boring, but the files do provide a fascinating tale of racism, self-preservation and gratefully some heroic behavior by local people of both races 65 years ago in our town.
Jones Lynching Files
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John, I look forward to digging into these. Thanks for linking to them. Glad you're posting here again.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Chris. I first saw some of these years ago and the trial transcript was an eye-opener for me. I had always assumed that the not-guilty verdicts in the Federal trial were just more examples of the jury nullification by the all-white jury, as took place during the WP Grand Jury. But after reading the transcript, it was clear that because of witnesses of shaky reliability and lack of evidence the Feds simply didn't prove their case.
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