The Spectacle Lynching of Claude Neal

Claude Neal was an African American farmhand living in Jackson County, Florida who was accused of raping and murdering Lola Cannady, a nineteen-year-old white female, just outside the town of Greenwood on October 18, 1934. Neal was arrested and charged for the crime and despite a lack of sufficient evidence against him to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, lynch mobs began to form to find and kill him. In order to keep Neal safe from the lynch mobs he was moved to multiple jails but was finally captured and brought back to Marianna, Florida