Maggie Howze and Alma Howze
Maggie Howze and Alma Howze were lynched along with two young black men in December 1918.
They were accused of killing Dr. E.L. Johnston. Johnston was a dentist. In his travels in search of clients in Alabama, Johnston developed an intimate relationship with Maggie, a black woman.
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He asked Howze and her sister to move and stay with him in Mississippi. Three black laborers worked on Johnston’s plantation during that time; including Major and Andrew Clark.
Major was said to have attempted courting Maggie but Johnston disapproved and threatened him. Johnston was found dead shortly afterward.
Major and the Howze sisters immediately became the prime suspect. The authorities were said to have placed Major’s testicles between the “jaws of a vise” to extract a confession from him.
He admitted that he killed Johnston and was put in jail with the sister. But a white mob ravaged cells and removed them and lynched them.
Ropes were placed around the necks of the four Blacks and the other ends tied to the girder of a bridge. As Maggie cried, “I ain’t guilty of killing the doctor and you oughtn’t to kill me,” she was struck by a monkey wrench in the mouth, knocking her teeth out.
No one stepped forward to claim their bodies and they were placed in unmarked graves.
