Racial Terror Lynchings in St. Pete, Local Coalition Joins National Monument Movement
Monday, February 24, 2020
Published February 22, 2020 by TheBurgVotes
“On November 12, 1914 a crowd of 1,500, including many of St. Petersburg’s prominent white families and leaders, gathered at Ninth Street South and Second Avenue to watch John Evans being lynched from a light pole. At first, he kept himself alive by wrapping his legs around the light pole. Then an unidentified white woman in a nearby automobile ended his struggle with a single bullet. Though the shot was fatal, the rest of the crowd began shooting at Evans’ dangling body until their ammunition was depleted.”
This was but one of the acts of naked violence perpetrated against African Americans in Pinellas County that will soon be memorialized with the installation of a lynching memorial marker, situated on the site of that 1914 murder of John Evans.
The project was initiated in 2017 by a Lynching Memorial Committee at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church of St. Petersburg. Since then, dozens of community leaders and organizations have joined in support.
They’ve won the blessing of Deputy Mayor and City Administrator Dr. Kanika Tomalin too. The City of St. Petersburg will contribute the land for the lynching marker.
Visit www.theburgvotes.com to read more.
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