In the early hours of September 24, 1906, the body of a 30 year old Black man named Zeb Long was found hanging from a tree in East Point, Georgia. His death was not the result of any alleged crime, nor was it the outcome of a trial or even an accusation of violence. Zeb Long was lynched for something far more dangerous in the Jim Crow South: he complained openly about the way white people were mistreating Black Americans.
On September 22, 1906, Atlanta descended into chaos. Fueled by sensationalist newspaper stories that falsely accused Black men of assaulting white women, mobs of white men and boys poured into the streets. Over the next four days, an estimated 5,000 whites rampaged through Atlanta and surrounding areas, attacking Black men, women, and children without restraint.
Black neighborhoods were invaded, businesses were destroyed, and people were beaten, stabbed, and shot in public. Many victims were attacked simply for being Black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Streetcars were stopped so Black passengers could be pulled off and assaulted. Homes were burned. Families fled or hid as the city spiraled into lawlessness.
Law enforcement did little to stop the violence. Police were either overwhelmed or unwilling to confront the mobs. It was not until the governor ordered state troops into Atlanta that any real effort was made to restore order. By then, dozens of Black residents had been killed or seriously injured, and the message was clear: Black safety was expendable.
It was in this atmosphere of terror that Zeb Long was arrested. On the evening of September 23, police officers encountered him in East Point, just outside Atlanta. According to contemporary accounts, Long was arrested for “incendiary talk about the way white people were treating negroes.” In plain terms, he was taken into custody for voicing anger and frustration about white violence against Black people.
After his arrest, Long was placed in the East Point jail, a small wooden structure that a local newspaper later described as a “flimsy” shack. Despite the ongoing racial violence and the known presence of white mobs in the area, no effort was made to protect him.
The arresting officer took no additional precautions. Long was not moved to a more secure facility. No guards were posted to protect him. In effect, the jail became a holding place where he could easily be reached by those intent on killing him.
Around 5 a.m. on September 24, a mob of at least 50 white men stormed the East Point jail, encountering little to no resistance. Zeb Long was dragged from his cell, a rope placed around his neck, and forced to walk roughly half a mile west into a wooded area, desperately begging for his life while the men ignored his pleas, before being lynched and left hanging from a tree, where his body was discovered later that morning.
The following day, a coroner’s jury concluded that Zeb Long had been killed by “unknown parties.” With that statement, the case was effectively closed. There was no serious investigation, no arrests, and no consequences for anyone involved.
Zeb Long’s lynching was not an isolated act. Between 1865 and 1950, at least 36 Black people were victims of racial terror lynching in Fulton County. Across Georgia, historians have documented at least 595 such lynchings during that same period.
These killings were meant to enforce silence and submission. In Long’s case, the message was unmistakable: Black people were not allowed to criticize white behavior, even in the face of mass violence.
More than a century later, Zeb Long’s life and death were formally recognized with a historical marker installed in East Point in 2022, exactly 116 years after his lynching. Erected in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), the marker acknowledges that he was killed for speaking out against white abuse and places his death within the broader context of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.
Source:
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=227408
