 The rate of lynchings of black males was high across the South during this period of social tensions and white resistance to Reconstruction.Armistad Johnson was lynched in 1889, and John Kelly and Gulbert Harris in 1892 in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse, after a mob of hundreds rapidly escalated to thousands of whites vehemently demanding execution, despite Kelly's pleas of innocence and lack of trial.The angry mob eventually forced over his custody from an Officer adamantly attempting to deliver the suspect to the jail house, then the crowd watched enthusiastically as he was hung and riddled with bullets.