Will or Willie Temple (also named "John"[1]) was an African American man who was lynched by a white mob on September 30, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama.
Willie Temple born in 1894; he was the oldest of four children. His parents, Lewis and Ella (Shorter) Temple, were farmers, and Temple worked for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad as a cook. On September 29, 1919, at night, Temple and another man came back from a dance when, after being approached by a third man, a fight broke out. A police officer named J. J. Barbaree (spelled "Barbare" in a contemporary newspaper article[2]) tried to arrest them, and shots were fired, by Temple and Barbaree. The police officer died, and Temple, wounded, was arrested at a colleague's house. Temple was taken to Hale Infirmary, a hospital for African American citizens of Montgomery,[3] and on the morning of September 30, just after 2AM,[2] a white mob entered and, despite the presence of two police officers, shot him to death.[3]
The event was one of many racist murders and riots during the so-called Red Summer of 1919. Two other men in Montgomery (both veterans of the Armed Forces) had been murdered the day before.[2]
^The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer (September 30, 1919). "Negro Shot To Death By Mob". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. pp. 1–16. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
