Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1901 — MOB BURNS A NEGRO. [ARTICLE]

MOB BURNS A NEGRO.

Chain Him to a Stake and Apply the Torch. Five hundred enraged and determined citizens of Coffee county, Alabama, Wednesday morning took part in burning at the stake a negro who gave the name of John Wesley Pennington. The mob was composed of both white and black residents and not one in the crowd displayed the least show of mercy as the miserable wretch pleaded, prayed, cursed, wept and screamed in terrible agony. As the names gnawed into his vitals his eyes bulged from their sockets and the victim struggled with herculean efforts to break his chain. Still not one of his cevere judges relented, and it was not until all that had been a human being had been converted into ashes that the crowd seemed to have been satisfied. Pennington had committed a brutal assault upon Mrs. J. C. Davis, the wife of one of the most prominent farmers of Coffee county, and confessed his guilt