Cordella Stevenson was a Black woman living in rural Mississippi. In 1915, after her son was suspected of a crime he didn’t commit, a white mob kidnapped and lynched her, leaving her body hanging in public. No one was ever held accountable for her murder.
The lynching of Cordella Stevenson was part of the broader system of Jim Crow, which rose in the South after slavery ended in 1865. States passed laws that stripped African Americans of voting rights, blocked access to education, and enforced segregation in every corner of public life. Beneath these laws was something even more dangerous: a culture of racial terror.
Lynching became one of the most powerful tools of that terror. White mobs murdered thousands of Black men and women between the 1880s and the 1940s. These killings were public, intentional, and often celebrated. They served as warnings to entire Black communities that any challenge, real or imagined, to white authority would be punished with death.
It was in this world that Cordella Stevenson, a Black woman living in Lowndes County, Mississippi, found herself in the crosshairs of white suspicion in 1915.
Cordella Stevenson lived with her husband, Arch, in a quiet rural area outside Columbus, Mississippi. They were hardworking and respected, having worked for the same white employer for over ten years. Their son, however, had a bad reputation, which made the family a target.
The trouble started when a local white man’s barn burned down. There was no evidence or witnesses, but people immediately suspected the Stevensons’ son, even though he hadn’t been seen in the area for months.
The police tried to track him with dogs but were unsuccessful. Frustrated, police they arrested Cordella and Arch instead. The couple was held for several days and questioned over and over, as the authorities tried to find their son. In the end, there was no proof that they knew his whereabouts, and they were released. But being free didn’t mean they were safe.
In the Jim Crow South, even a small suspicion could be deadly. Accusations from white neighbors were often enough to spark mob violence. And soon, that danger came straight to their home.
On the night of December 8, 1915, a white mob stormed the Stevenson home under the cover of darkness. They broke in and confronted the couple at gunpoint. Arch escaped only by running immediately, knowing that any attempt to fight back would mean certain death.
Cordella faced the full violence of the mob alone.
She was kidnapped, sexually assaulted by several men, and lynched. Her naked body was later found hanging from a tree near the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, deliberately placed where it could be seen by train passengers and anyone passing by. The public display of lynched bodies was a common tactic during the Jim Crow era, designed to terrorize Black communities and enforce white supremacy by making an example of the victim.
Unlike many lynchings, Cordella Stevenson’s murder did not remain local news. It received national attention, thanks to the efforts of the NAACP. Cases like hers helped fuel the early anti-lynching movement, pushing for federal legislation and greater public awareness of racial violence.
Despite this attention, local authorities made no serious effort to identify the mob. They treated the killing as a tragedy caused by “unknown persons.” No suspects were named, and no arrests were made. Her lynching was quietly dismissed, as was common in Mississippi at the time.
Today, her story stands as a reminder of the brutal violence used to uphold white supremacy long after slavery ended.
Sources:
Newspapers called lynching of Black Mississippi woman ‘mysterious affair’
