The Virginia Board of Historic Resources last month approved a new historical marker recognizing the lynchings of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas in Alexandria.
The 19-year-old McCoy was arrested without a warrant and then lynched by a mob on April 23, 1897, according to the city government. A mob of white residents stormed the Police House (now City Hall), where McCoy was being held after being accused of sexually assaulting three women. He was shot, stabbed and hanged from a lamppost at Cameron and Lee Streets.
On Aug. 8, 1899, 16-year-old Benjamin Thomas was shot to death and hanged by a mob of residents at King and Fairfax Street after being accused of attempting to assault an eight-year-old white child who lived next door to him.
“Throughout Virginia, similar accusations were often used against Black males to intimidate and control the African American community,” the Virginia Department of Historic Resources said in a release. “Ignoring due process, hundreds of people forcibly took McCoy from the police station and Thomas from the jail, brutalized them, and hanged them from lampposts within a block of City Hall. No one was brought to justice for the murders, and patrols continued to threaten Black Alexandrians. The families of McCoy and Thomas moved away.”
According to the city, 99 people were lynched in Virginia between 1877 and 1950, including at least 11 in Northern Virginia. McCoy and Thomas were Alexandria’s two documented lynching victims.
“From 1866 until well into the 20th century, more than 100 people, primarily Black men, were lynched in Virginia,” the Virginia Department of Historic Resources said. “In its meeting on September 17, the Board approved three markers under a special initiative to place state historical highway markers at, or near, the sites of lynchings that occurred in the Commonwealth.”
The state board, on Sept. 17, recommended the new marker be located near the lynching sites at N. Fairfax Street between Cameron and King Streets, alongside City Hall. If approved by the city, the new marker could be erected within approximately eight months.
The state board approved 11 new historical markers on Sept. 17, including ones recognizing lynchings in Northumberland County and Leesburg.
