Blasterz are accustomed to seeing old prisons with bars and locks and obvious signs of their historic purpose. However, the old Tuscaloosa jail, across from old Capitol Park, has had its iron bars removed and beautiful landscaping added. The only clue to this buildings former use as a jail was the equal justice initiative historic markers posted outside, since the old Tuscaloosa jail is where several African-American men were taken from jail cells here by white mobs and lynched.
The Equal Justice Initiative marker in front of the old jail reads as follows:
"[East side]
LYNCHING IN TUSCALOOSA
Terror lynching in Tuscaloosa County went unaddressed for decades, devastating the African-American community. In December 1889, Bud Wilson was taken from police by a white mob who hung and fatally shot him after he was alleged to have entered the home of white woman. This lynching followed that of Andy Burke who was taken from the Tuscaloosa jail and killed by a mob in 1884. Charles McKelton and John Johnson were removed from police custody white mob and hanged from a tree in Romulus on February 11, 1892. On July 12, 1898, over 100 white farmers hung and fatally shot Sydney Johnson near Coaling after he was accused of assaulting two white women. When a black man named John Durrett denounced the mob killing, a white mob surrounded Durrett’s home three days later on July 15 and lynched him. Lynchings continued in Tuscaloosa County well into the twentieth century. On March 13, 1919, a mob of white men obstructed Cicero Cage, a black teenager, near the town of Ralph and lynched him. None of these men were ever held accountable. The boy’s father, Sam Cage, found his son dead with his throat “literally cut to pieces”. On September 24, 1933, after being accused of attempting to assault a white woman near the Tuscaloosa Country Club, Dennis Cross was shot to death by a group of white men who came to his home posing as officers. The County Sheriff later stated that the woman cross was accused of assaulting had in fact never been attacked.
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE 2017"
[West side]
LYNCHING IN AMERICA
thousands of African-Americans were victims of lynching and racial violence in the United States between the Civil War and World War II. The lynching of African-Americans during this era was a form of racial terrorism used to intimidate black people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. Lynching was most prevalent in the South. After the Civil War, violent resistance to equal rights for African-Americans and an ideology of white supremacy led to fatal violence against black women, men, and children accused of violating social customs, engaging in interracial relationships, or crimes. Community leaders who spoke against this racial terror were themselves often targeted by violent mobs. Lynching became the most public and notorious form of racial terror and subordination directed at black people and was frequently tolerated or even supported by law enforcement and elected officials. Though terror lynching generally took place in communities with functioning criminal justice systems, lynching victims were denied due process, often based on mere accusations, and pulled from jails or delivered to mobs by law officers legally required to protect them. Millions of African-Americans fled the South to escape the climate of terror and trauma created by these acts of violence. Of the more than 350 documented racial terror lynchings that took place in Alabama between 1877 and 1950, eight took place in Tuscaloosa County.
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE 2017"
More proof that this is in fact the old Tuscaloosa jail comes from several newspaper articles alerting readers to its endangered status:
From the Tuscaloosa News: (
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"One of Tuscaloosa’s oldest buildings has been named as a “place in peril” on Alabama’s Most Endangered Sites list for 2014
By Lydia Seabol Avant / Staff Writer
Posted May 29, 2014 at 11:00 PM
Updated May 29, 2014 at 11:39 PM
One of Tuscaloosa’s oldest buildings has been named as a “place in peril” on Alabama’s Most Endangered Sites list for 2014.
The old Tuscaloosa County Jail, 2803 Sixth St., is a two-story brick building that served as the county jail from 1856 to 1890. There is some evidence that the building, which is across the street from Capitol Park, may have originally served as a hotel in the 1840s. It went on to serve as a boarding house in the early 1900s before being turned into a Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall from 1951 to 1979. The Capitol School leased the building from the Tuscaloosa City Schools system from 2003 to 2007, but the building has been vacant since.
“We really loved the building. It’s a great building,” said Margaret Hill, an instructor and one of the founders of the Capitol School. “It’s very sad that it has ended up on the list.“
The Capitol School used the building for its high school but moved out because it was unsure how long the lease with the city schools would last, Hill said.
According to the Alabama Historical Commission, the old jail was put on the list because the building has been vacant the past several years and because it is in close proximity to new residential and retail construction, most notably the new four-story 2700 Capitol Park apartment development on the corner of University Boulevard and 28th Avenue. Next to that development, a block of historic homes and Tuscaloosa’s first synagogue were torn down earlier this year to make way for a Hilton Home Suites extended stay hotel.
“The historic (jail) is relatively weather-tight, but it is suffering from demolition by neglect, and the burgeoning value of nearby real estate could raise the risk of losing this rare public building that survives from Tuscaloosa’s early days,” according to the endangered sites report.
The old jail was designed by William B. Robertson, features Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival and Italianate features and has 28-inch-thick walls and floors made of solid, squared logs. According to the historical commission, one of the notorious criminals housed at the jail was the “outlaw sheriff of Sumter County” Stephen S. Renfroe, who attempted to burn a hole in the log floor to escape.
The Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation have published the list of the most endangered historic places since 1994. This year’s list includes two public buildings, an antebellum home, a 20th-century bungalow, an old mill complex and a well-known Alabama streetscape.
“We hope that this list encourages people to take action to save and preserve these areas around the state,” said Gena Robbins, a spokeswoman working with the Alabama Historical Commission and also the mayor of York. “They are important because they are part of our past but also part of our future. It reflects on us as a state when we take part to preserve who we are, including the structures.“
In addition to the old jail, this year’s list includes:
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Birmingham Branch, 1801 Fifth Ave. N., Birmingham.
Winter Place, 454 S. Goldthewaite Street, Montgomery.
Amelia and Samuel Boynton House, 1315 Lapsley St., Selma.
Pearce’s Mill, Hamilton area.
North Eufaula Avenue Parkway, Eufaula."