Editing Shubuta, Mississippi (section)

====1942 lynchings====
In 1942 during World War II, Ernest Green, a fourteen-year-old black boy, along with Charlie Lang, aged fifteen, were seen speaking to Dorothy Martin, a thirteen-year-old white girl whom they knew from the area. Accounts vary as to what took place. One or more whites who saw the three youths together while driving by reported the incident to Martin's father. Another account said that the incident was "attempted rape" after Dorothy told her parents about it. The boys were arrested by Clarke County Sheriff Lloyd McNeal, and appeared before [[justice of the peace]] W.E. Eddins, perhaps in a hearing at his residence, where they allegedly confessed to attempted rape. By October 10 the boys were held in the jail at the county seat of [[Quitman, Mississippi|Quitman]]. On October 12, Quitman Town Marshall G.F. Dabbs handed the boys over to several white men, who took the boys away.<ref name="neu"/>

The men took the boys to the Shubuta railroad bridge, where they mutilated them by cutting off their genitals, and hanged the youths from the bridge.<ref name="neu">{{cite web|title=Ernest Green and Charles Lang|url=http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/ernest-green-and-charles-lang-3-2/|publisher=Nuweb9, Northeastern University School of Law|access-date=December 27, 2017|archive-date=December 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227124842/http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/ernest-green-and-charles-lang-3-2/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The sheriff told the ''[[Pittsburgh Courier]]'' that the local people respected law and order, but that "Them niggers is gettin’ uppity, you know.”<ref name="Boo Mitchell">{{cite news|last1=Mitchell|first1=Jerry|title="Hanging Bridge" signing May 2 at Lemuria|url=http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/journeytojustice/2016/05/01/hanging-bridge-signing-may-2-lemuria/83803346/|access-date=December 26, 2017|newspaper=Clarion Ledger|date=May 1, 2016}}</ref> Walter Atkins, a black journalist, asserted in 1942 that the “rickety old span is a symbol of the South as much as magnolia blossoms or mint julep colonels.”<ref name="JAL" /> Sherriff McNeal was said to have expressed remorse on his deathbed for the murders of Green and Lang.<ref name="neu" />  Governor [[Paul B. Johnson Sr.|Paul Johnson]] declared that the lynchings were murders, there was nothing he could do about it, and criticized first lady [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] for discussing the matter in the national media.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bernstein |first1=Victor |title=Lack Power For Decisive Action |work=Pittsburgh Courier and PM |date=November 7, 1942|id={{ProQuest|202120365}} }}</ref>

Because of its own history and connection to the white lynchings of thousands of blacks in the South, the bridge was added to the [[National List of Historic Places]] in 1988.<ref name="NHRP 88002490">{{cite web|title=NATIONAL REGISTER DIGITAL ASSETS|url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/88002490|access-date=December 26, 2017}}</ref> As of 2016, the abandoned bridge still stands at the end of East Street but is blocked off from access by a barricade.<ref name="JAL" /><ref name="Lynching Time">{{cite magazine|last1=Ward|first1=Jason Morgan|title=The Infamous Lynching Site That Still Stands in Mississippi|url=https://time.com/4314310/hanging-bridge-excerpt-mississippi-civil-rights/|magazine=Time|access-date=December 26, 2017|date=May 3, 2016}}</ref>