Lynching of Reverend Lightfoot

Dublin Core

Title

Lynching of Reverend Lightfoot

Subject

Robin Lightfoot; Lynching; Bushwhackers; Civil War; African American History; Lauderdale County, AL

Description

Robin Lightfoot, a mixed blood slave, help to organize the first church of African Americans at Florence, Church Spring, in 1837. Reverend Lightfoot preached on the hope for eventual emancipation for his people. While Union General Don Carlos Buell occupied Florence in 1862, Reverend Lightfoot’s sermons were relayed to local Bushwhackers, pro-confederate guerillas. The Bushwhackers captured Reverend Lightfoot at the current location of Wood Avenue Church of Christ. They hauled him to Stewart Spring and lynched him in an oak tree.

Creator

Michael Williams, University of North Alabama

Source

Debra Glass, Maed and Military Historian, Heath Mathews. n.d. "Civil War's Western Theater." armyoftennessee.wordpress.com. Accessed April 19, 2015. https://armyoftennessee.wordpress.com/two-martyrs-robin-lightfoot-and-w-h-mitchell/.

Publisher

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

Date

1862