The Lynching of William Taylor/Lynching in America - Dallas, TX - Civil Rights Memorials on Waymarking.com

This sign was placed here on November 4, 2023, part of a larger project put in motion by the Equal Justice Initiative Community Remembrance Project in Montgomery, AL. "Dallas County Justice Initiative", "Dallas County Justice Initiative" and "2023" are on the bottom of the William Taylor side of the sign, while "Equal Justice Initiative" and "2023" are on the bottom of the sign on the other. The medallion of their Community Remembrance Project is at the top on both sides, noting Dallas County, and the text reads:

The Lynching of William Taylor

On September 12, 1884, a mob of at least 400 young white men lynched a 25-year-old Black man named William Allen Taylor near this location beside the Trinity River. Weeks before the lynching, Mr. Taylor was arrested after being accused of robbing and assaulting a white woman. During this era of racial terror, allegations against Black people were rarely subject to serious scrutiny and often sparked violent reprisal. In June, local white press reported that the woman's alleged attacker was an unidentified Black man but did not mention allegations of assault. Rather, sensationalized reports came months later, as local officials struggled to enact punishment, and hostile suspicion targeted William Taylor. Although no credible evidence tied him to any offense, plans to lynch Mr. Taylor began to spread among the white community. In response, the sheriff transferred Mr. Taylor to a jail in Waxahachie to await his trial. But on September 12, as Mr. Taylor was en route to Dallas, a lynch mob abducted him from police custody, still handcuffed, and hanged him from a tree. Although law enforcement officers were armed, they did not use force against the mob to protect William Taylor. These were his last words: "Boss, you're hanging an innocent man. I don't know anything about it and won't tell a lie by saying I do." No one was ever held accountable for the lynching of William Taylor.

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Lynching in America

Thousands of Black people were victims of lynching in the United States between 1865 and 1950. During this era, lynching emerged as the most notorious and public form of racial terrorism, used to enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. Public spectacle lynchings, like the lynching of William Allen Taylor, were often committed in prominent community locations and attended by hundreds to thousands of white men, women, and children without fear of legal repercussions. Lynch mobs would inflict extreme violence on the body of a victim, then allow the victim to hang for hours in an attempt to instill fear in the Black community. In most cases of racial terror lynching, law enforcement failed to prevent lynchings or punish perpetrators. Mobs routinely abducted Black people from courts, jails, and police custody. Local, state, and federal officials tolerated -- and sometimes encouraged and participated in -- these lawless killings of Black women, men, and children, especially by refusing to prosecute mob participants, who rarely faced criminal or community consequences for their lawlessness. Of the more than 338 racial terror lynchings of Black people documented in Texas, at least seven are known to have taken place in Dallas County.

Civil Right Type: Race (includes U.S. Civil Rights movement)

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