Talmage added to lynchings re-enactment

A re-enactment of a notorious lynching 60 years ago will feature a new character this year, the late Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge. Organizers say a volunteer depicting Talmadge will deliver a race-baiting stump speech before the annual re-enactment. Every year volunteers depict two black couples being attacked and killed by a white mob at Moore's Ford Bridge in 1946. FBI has investigated claims that Talmadge was involved in the lynching.

Did former governor encourage lynchings?

Newly-released files from the lynching of two black couples more than 60 years ago contain a disturbing revelation: The FBI investigated suspicions that a three-term governor of Georgia sanctioned the murders to sway rural white voters during a tough election campaign. Nearly 4,000 pages obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act do not make conclusions about the still-unsolved killings at Moore's Ford Bridge. But they raise the possibility that Eugene Talmadge's politics may have been a factor when a white mob dragged the four victims from a car, tied them to a tree and opened fire.