Jesse Thornton

Case summary

Incident

On June 22, 1940, Crenshaw County farmer Jesse Thornton visited a barber shop in downtown Luverne. According to a report from Birmingham NAACP Secretary Dr. Charles A.J. McPherson, Thornton, who was Black, was standing outside the shop with some friends when he noticed white police officer J. Doris Rhodes approach. Thornton remarked, “There comes Doris Rhodes, Boys.”

McPherson reported that Rhodes overheard Thornton and asked him to repeat what he said. Thornton initially hesitated before stating, “Mr. Doris Rhodes.” According to McPherson, Rhodes replied, “No you didn’t N–. You said ‘Doris Rhodes,’” and hit Thornton with his blackjack. Thornton fell to the ground. Rhodes then arrested Thornton and walked him to jail.

As Rhodes worked to unlock the jail, Thornton broke free and began to run. McPherson wrote that onlookers “pelted” Thornton with “brick, bats and stones” and “five shots were fired at him.” Thornton kept running as the “ever-increasing mob,” including Rhodes, pursued him.

According to McPherson’s report, Thornton ran nearly a mile before stopping in a field. A white woman saw him sit down and wipe his bloody brow with a handkerchief. Thornton then attempted to resume running, but was unable to. The mob caught up with Thornton, put him in a truck, and brought him to a swamp. The all-white group, McPherson wrote, dragged Thornton from the truck, fired several more shots, and then emerged from the woods after 20 or 25 minutes without him.

The group returned downtown to inquire where Thornton lived, stopping at the barber shop and City Hall. After learning the location of Thornton’s home, the mob proceeded there and demanded that Thornton’s wife, Nellie, tell them where her husband was. She told the group that Thornton had gone downtown and, according to McPherson, they “threatened her and told her that she had better tell where he was.”

The group then returned to town. There, McPherson reported, they consulted with Mayor T. McKing before returning to Thornton’s house. The mob put Nellie Thornton in a car, kept her there “practically all night,” and threatened to kill her if she said anything.

Six days later, according to McPherson, a Black man named Stephen Thompson noticed “a drove of vultures and buzzards and other scavengers” while fishing in the Patalylagga River. When Thompson approached, he discovered a man’s decomposing body. Thompson went downtown to alert authorities and city officials directed a group of incarcerated Black men to make a casket and collect the body.

According to The Luverne Journal and News, Deputy Sheriff Ray Horn accompanied the incarcerated men to the river. On searching the body, the sheriff discovered a gold watch and a pocketknife. One of the men, recognizing the watch as one he had previously sold to Thornton, identified the body.

Aftermath

An article in The Luverne Journal and News reported, “It is stated that an examination of the body showed no signs of being hit by the bullets.” Thornton was buried in a Black cemetery in Luverne the same day his body was discovered. According to McPherson’s report, Nellie Thornton was not notified.

NAACP Special Counsel Thurgood Marshall wrote to Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General O. John Rogge on Aug. 13 to request an investigation into Thornton’s death. Marshall included McPherson’s report. Rogge replied on Aug. 26 to inform Marshall that the DOJ would give “earnest consideration” to an investigation. The same day, Rogge wrote to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and asked that Thornton’s death be investigated “discreetly” and “without contacting the police officials,” given that the police were among the participants in the mob. Whether Hoover replied is unknown.

On Aug. 23, Jessie Daniel Ames, executive director of the Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, wrote to Montgomery Advertiser Editor Grover Hall to inquire if he knew anything about Thornton’s killing. Hall replied three days later, stating that they had not heard “of the Luverne affair until the Negro papers printed it.” Hall said that he was trying to investigate, adding, “If we can establish the story I think I can get some official action concerning it.”

According to a letter she wrote to the Tuskegee Institute, Ames began investigating Thornton’s death on Sept. 25. The results of this investigation, outlined in a Dec. 28 letter to Tuskegee Department of Records and Research Director Ralph Davis, “indicated that three persons perpetrated the crime” and “the circumstances under which the crime was committed warrant classifying it as a lynching.” According to the letter, a deputy for the governor of Alabama conducted an investigation into the matter. The outcome of that investigation is unknown.

Rhodes died in 1967 at age 62.

Media Gallery

Case summaries are compiled using government records and archival primary source material. These include, but are not limited to, investigative records, arrest reports, newspaper articles, court filings, census records, birth and death certificates, transcripts, and press releases. In many cases, the records contain contradictory assertions.

In addition to the incident files associated with this case, this summary relied on the following:

Sources

Archival Records

• NAACP Papers: Legal File; Lynching Subject File, 1940-1955; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• Papers of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching: Correspondence; Northeastern University Library, Boston, Massachusetts
• Papers of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching: Organizational Files; Northeastern University Library, Boston, Massachusetts
• Papers of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation: Organizational Files; Northeastern University Library, Boston, Massachusetts

Genealogical Records

• Certificate of Death, Alabama Bureau of Vital Statistics, Alabama, United States, 1940
• Alabama Marriage Index, Alabama, United States, 1891, 1912, 1921
• Population Schedule for Crenshaw County, Alabama, United States Federal Census, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940
• Population Schedule for Wayne County, Michigan, United States Federal Census, 1950
• World War II Draft Registration Cards, Alabama, United States, 1943

Newspaper Articles

• “Alabama Mobbists Kill Man: Victim Failed to Say ‘Mr.,’” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), August 24, 1940
• “Anti-Lynch Law Necessary, NAACP Declares; Organization Investigates Fifth Lynching,” Atlanta Daily World, August 20, 1940
• “Conviction in Miller Case,” The Birmingham News (Birmingham, AL), September 27, 1933
• “Crenshaw County Semi-Annual Report,” The Luverne Journal and News (Luverne, AL), July 31, 1931
• “Dorris Rhodes in Race for Sheriff,” The Luverne Journal and News (Luverne, AL), February 2, 1938
• “Hushed-Up Lynching Answer to Sen. Barkley: Mob Murder of 40 Found in Alabama,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 1940
• “Jesse Thornton Found Dead in Patasaliga,” The Luverne Journal and News (Luverne, AL), July 7, 1940
• “Probe Recent Lynching in Luverne, Ala.,” The Chicago Defender, September 14, 1940
• “Puts Barkley on Spot with Lynch Query,” The Chicago Defender, August 24, 1940
• Obituary for James Doris Rhodes, Alabama Journal (Montgomery, AL), June 8, 1967