Will Johnson
Will Johnson, a 24-year-old Black man, was one of six Black men held in the Hemphill jail in Sabine County, Texas. According to The Waxahachie Daily Light, about 150 armed men came to the jail around midnight on June 21, 1908, overpowered the sheriff, who had refused to give up his keys, and took the six men out. The paper reported that five of them were hanged from a limb of a nearby tree and one was shot as he ran. An Associated Press dispatch in The Pensacola Journal gives the date as June 22 and reports only that a mob took six men from a Texas jail and hanged them.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A crowd of about 150 armed men overpowered the sheriff, took six men from the Hemphill jail and hanged five from a tree; one was shot as he ran.
Reported by: news reports.