1930 - On January 31, a mob tortured, mutilated and burned alive James Irwin, accused of killing a fourteen-year-old girl, in Ocilla, Georgia. Irwin, an illiterate but hard-working field hand who was married with one child, was dragged from his home and taken to the place where the girl’s body was found. There the mob chained Irwin to a tree, cut off his fingers and toes, joint by joint, and distributed them as souvenirs. Mob members extracted Irwin’s teeth with pliers and tried to make him swallow a red-hot poker by repeatedly ramming it into his mouth. After castration and other mutilations that lasted more than an hour, Irwin was doused with gasoline and burned alive.
Burned past recognition, Irwin’s body hung from a gum tree by a public road for several hours. Thousands of men, women and children rode out to see the spectacle. At nightfall, county employees took the body down and buried it. Larmartine Hardman, the governor of Georgia, requested a report on Irwin’s lynching. The solicitor general reported back that he could find no information to warrant any indictments.
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