Lynching of Ephraim Grizzard

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Historical background Reconstruction era Voter suppression Disfranchisement Redeemers Compromise of 1877 Jim Crow laws Segregation Anti-miscegenation laws Convict leasing
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Lynchings Andrew Richards Michael Green Nevlin Porter and Johnson Spencer Eliza Woods Amos Miller George Meadows Joe Vermillion Jim Taylor Joe Coe People's Grocery Ephraim Grizzard Alfred Blount Samuel J. Bush Stephen Williams Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker John Henry James Sam Hose George Ward David Wyatt Marie Thompson Watkinsville Ed Johnson William Burns Walker family Laura and L. D. Nelson King Johnson John Evans Jesse Washington Newberry Six Anthony Crawford Ell Persons Jim McIlherron George Taylor John Hartfield 1920 Duluth James Harvey and Joe Jordan Joe Pullen
Massacres and riots Opelousas massacre Rock Springs massacre Thibodaux massacre Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895 Phoenix election riot Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Pana riot Robert Charles riots Evansville race riot Atlanta Massacre of 1906 Springfield race riot of 1908 Johnson–Jeffries riots 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County 1917 Chester race riot East St. Louis riots Elaine massacre Red Summer Chicago race riot of 1919 Washington race riot of 1919 Ocoee massacre Tulsa race massacre Perry race riot Rosewood massacre
Reactions Anti-lynching movement Exodusters movement Atlanta Compromise Niagara Movement NAACP Great Migration Back to Africa movement
Related topics Black genocide Civil rights movement (1865–1896) Civil rights movement (1896–1954) Mass racial violence in the United States
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Ephraim Grizzard and Henry Grizzard were African-American brothers who were lynched in Middle Tennessee in April 1892 as suspects in the assaults on two white sisters. Henry Grizzard was hanged by a white mob on April 24 near the house of the young women in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

Ephraim and another brother, John Grizzard, had been arrested and taken to jail in Nashville, along with two other suspects. John Grizzard and another detainee were released because there was no evidence that they had been involved in the alleged assaults. However, on April 30, a white mob estimated to number as many as 10,000 overpowered the police guards and took Ephraim Grizzard from the jail. He was dragged through the streets to the Woodland Street Bridge, where he was hanged. Members of the mob then shot his dead body more than two hundred times.

In June 2017 Ephraim Grizzard's memory was honored with a church service at Fisk University and a plaque was dedicated at St. Anselm's Episcopal Church in Nashville. An historical commemoration was planned for a week in June 2019 by "We Remember Nashville" and the Equal Justice Initiative to acknowledge the Grizzard brothers and two victims of an earlier lynching in Nashville.