August 14, 2020
Benjamin Thomas was dragged from the old Alexandria jail at the intersection of St. Asaph and Princess streets and dragged to the corner of King and Fairfax streets, where he was lynched by an angry mob. He was 16 at the time of his death.
Stories this photo appears in:
Blood-Stained Hands in Alexandria
City marks 1899 lynching of Benjamin Thomas, who was 16.
It happened just after midnight. On Aug. 8, 1899, 16-year-old Benjamin Thomas was attacked at the city jail on Saint Asaph Street and dragged half a mile by an angry mob of white citizens in what would become the second lynching of an African American man in two years.
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