On the morning of March 28, 1941, deep in a wooded ravine at Fort Benning, Georgia, the lifeless body of Private Felix Hall was discovered. He had been hanging from a tree by a noose, his hands tied behind his back, his body left to decompose for over six weeks. Maggots had begun to consume his flesh. What happened to Hall was a lynching, and to this day, it remains the only documented case of a lynching on a U.S. military base.
Private Hall, known to his family and friends as “Poss,” was born on New Year’s Day in 1922 in the rural town of Millbrook, Alabama. His life had begun in hardship. His mother died of tuberculosis just before he turned three, and his father left for Montgomery in search of work, leaving young Felix and his brothers to be raised by their grandmother.
Like many young Black men during the Great Depression, Hall faced limited opportunities, but he sought dignity and purpose by enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1940. At 19, he was assigned to Company F of the 24th Infantry Regiment, an all-black unit of the U.S. Army based at Fort Benning, Georgia, one of the most prominent military installations in the South.
The Army was still segregated at the time, and racism was deeply entrenched not only in American society but also in the military itself.
Although they wore the same uniform, Black soldiers were confined to menial tasks and lived in inferior conditions. They were under constant scrutiny and often targeted by both civilian authorities and white soldiers.
Hall was last seen alive on February 12, 1941, in a predominantly white section of the fort. For weeks, he was missing. His fellow soldiers reportedly grew worried, but nothing came of it, until his body was found, suspended in the forest near the Chattahoochee River.
At first, Army officials said Hall had died by suicide, even though that didn’t add up, his hands were tied behind his back, and the rope had been wrapped multiple times around the tree to hold his weight.
Even after a military doctor ruled it a homicide and wrote that on his death certificate, the Army continued to offer other explanations. No one was arrested. No one was held responsible. And the case was quietly forgotten.
Theories Behind the Lynching of Felix Hall
Although no one was ever arrested or charged in connection with Hall’s death, several compelling theories have emerged, rooted in eyewitness accounts, FBI reports, and the cultural climate of the time.
One theory suggests that Hall was murdered by white soldiers or local civilians in a racially motivated attack. Hall was last seen in Block W, a poor white neighborhood near the base where two white soldiers, Sergeants Henry Green and James Hodges, lived. Green had allegedly been seen outside with a shotgun, boasting that he would shoot a Black “Peeping Tom.” Investigators later speculated that Green and his brother-in-law may have lured Hall into a trap. While the FBI redacted much of the information surrounding Hodges, his own daughter would later describe him as a violent, deeply racist man who “would absolutely have participated in a lynching.” The complexity of the crime, the way Hall’s body was bound and suspended, led investigators to believe that more than one person had to have been involved.
Another theory centers on a confrontation Hall reportedly had with his white supervisor, Henry Smith, at the Fort Benning sawmill. According to several Black soldiers, Hall had refused to call Smith “sir” and had picked up a cant hook in self-defense after Smith allegedly threatened him. The day before Hall vanished, Smith was overheard warning Hall not to return to work. Although multiple soldiers confirmed this account, the FBI chose to take the word of white sawmill workers who denied the conflict, effectively dismissing the possibility that Smith may have been involved.
A third theory revolves around a deadly taboo in the Jim Crow South: a rumored interaction between Hall and a white woman. Hall, by all accounts, was confident and sociable. Rumors circulated among soldiers and locals that he had been seen flirting with or speaking to a white woman. In that era, mere accusations of interracial relationships were enough to incite lynch mobs. While there is no direct evidence confirming such a relationship, the rumor itself may have been sufficient to trigger fatal consequences.
At the heart of all these shifting narratives is a deeper possibility: that the military and federal authorities actively tried to cover up what happened. The circumstances around the discovery of Hall’s body remain suspicious. Some witnesses said they had seen his body hanging in the woods days, or even weeks, before the Army claimed to have found it, raising doubts about whether the crime scene was staged or deliberately ignored. Even with clear signs of murder, like Hall’s hands being tied behind his back, officials pushed a suicide theory. Statements from Black witnesses were brushed aside, and leads pointing to possible suspects were either redacted or quietly dropped.
Documents later revealed that while both the Army and the FBI conducted investigations, there was no sincere effort to uncover the truth or to bring the perpetrators, likely fellow soldiers, to justice. The message was clear: the murder of a Black soldier, even one serving his country, was not worth pursuing.
For decades, Felix Hall’s lynching was a buried story. It received minimal press at the time, and the case went cold without formal justice. It wasn’t until 2021, eight decades after Hall’s death, that the U.S. Army officially acknowledged that he had been murdered, not lost to suicide or misadventure. The statement was brief, but its implications were enormous: a federal admission that the institution had failed one of its own, both in life and in death. As part of this long-delayed recognition, a memorial plaque was finally installed at Fort Benning to honor Hall’s life.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/09/02/the-story-of-the-only-known-lynching-on-a-u-s-military-base/
https://lynchingsitesmem.org/news/felix-hall-lynched-georgia-1941
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/08/03/fort-benning-memorializes-black-soldier-lynched-80-years-ago-as-post-awaits-renaming-effort/
