Third re-enactment of decades-old mass lynching today

Civil rights advocates are calling for justice in a mass lynching that occurred in Georgia 61 years ago. The Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials is holding its third annual re-enactment of the crime today.

Organizers have added a scene this year to the re-enactment of the killing of two black couples by a white mob at the Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton County. A volunteer dramatizes a racially-provocative speech by Governor Eugene Talmadge. Newly-released F-B-I documents show that Talmadge visited Walton County a day after the incident which triggered the lynchings, in which a black sharecropper stabbed and wounded a white farmer.

The report includes an unconfirmed witness statement that Talmadge incited the violence. Talmadge’s grandson, Herman, says his grandfather had no involvement in the episode.

Despite several state and federal investigations that have identified dozens of suspects, no one has ever been arrested or charged with the four killings.