Died in custody
George Meadows
George Meadows, a Black man, was in the custody of officers in Birmingham, Alabama, when a mob of several hundred people took him from them on the morning of Tuesday, January 15, 1889. According to the reporting, the crowd hanged him from a tree and then fired a volley of shots into his body. Six deputy sheriffs tried to stop the mob, and the sheriff later said he believed the mob had lynched the wrong man.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched
Reported by: the sheriff. The only account of how this person died comes from the agency that held him.