A Colored Preacher Lynched

A black preacher, charged with assault, is lynched in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Scottsboro, ALA., March 18– John Smith, a colored preacher, was shot to death by a mob, which broke into the jail here. Smith was arrested yesterday charged with assaulting the wife of a white farmer living near here. This morning a mob broke into the jail, and, despite the pleadings of the preacher, filled him full of bullets.

“A Colored Preacher Lynched,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed February 19, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1144.