James Black
James Black, a Black man, was held in the Dinwiddie County jail at Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia. According to The Daily Dispatch, as he was taken from the jail he spoke prayers and remarks about his wife. Newspaper accounts say between sixty and seventy-five masked men, several of them from Petersburg, came to the jail and took him, and that the jailer, overpowered, surrendered the keys. The men hanged him from a gallows about forty yards behind the jail. Accounts give the date of his death as April 12 or April 14, 1880.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A masked mob took James Black from the Dinwiddie County jail and hanged him, according to 1880 newspaper accounts, and one account says the jailer surrendered the keys after being overpowered.
Reported by: wire report from Petersburg, Va. (April 14, 1880) (reporters); Dallas Daily Herald dispatch from Petersburg, Va. (reporters); 1880 newspaper account of the Dinwiddie County jail hanging (reporters).