Victim of brutal 1845 Indianapolis lynching remembered with historical marking
October 03, 2023 11:12 AM
A black man’s brutal 1845 lynching will forever be marked in Indianapolis close to where he was murdered.
State and local leaders along with members of the Indiana Remembrance Coalition dedicated a marker on Indianapolis’s cultural trail to the slaying of John Tucker, who was beaten to death by a lynch mob, according to a report.
SUPREME COURT’S NEW TERM TO ENCOMPASS GUNS, ABORTION, AND FRESH SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGES
“Uncovering and documenting uncomfortable history is an obligation that we all must share,” said Eunice Trotter, director of Indiana Landmark’s Black Heritage Preservation Program.
“We must always seek to tell the full story of our history.”
Tucker was born as a slave around 1800 but obtained his freedom and made his way north to Indianapolis in the 1830s.
He fathered two children, but his life came to an end after Nicholas Wood, a white laborer, assaulted him on July 4, 1865, according to the report.
Tucker tried to defend himself and flee. However, Wood and at least two other men caught up to him and beat him to death as a crowd watched, the report noted.
Wood was charged and convicted of manslaughter, which was “a rarity in an era when Black Hoosiers could not testify in court,” according to the new marker.
After the death of their father, Tucker’s children faced a legal battle in pursuit of his property, Nicole Poletika, a historian and editor of Indiana History Blog, said.
Lynchings were not a rarity in Indiana between the mid-1800s to 1930, according to Trotter.
They “intentionally terrorized Black communities and enforced the notion of white supremacy,” according to the new marker.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Having the knowledge of such instances forces us to confront some of the most harmful, painful layers of the African American experience in Indiana,” Trotter said.
“Acknowledging them is an important part of the process of healing and reconciliating and saying that Black lives matter.”