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World War II: Felix Hall Lynching FBI Files, Newspaper Articles, Historical Material
World War II: Felix Hall Lynching FBI Files, Newspaper Articles, Historical Material
893 pages of material covering the lynching of Private Felix Hall at Fort Benning in February of 1941.
On February 12, 1941, Felix Hall, a black private, was last seen alive. His disappearance caused him to one month later to be officially declared a deserter. When on March 28, 1941, Hall, while still in his U.S. Army uniform was found hanging from a tree by a regiment training in a wooded area at Fort Benning in the state of Georgia. His murder became the first known lynching to take place on a U.S. military base.
Those responsible for the death of Hall were never brought to justice. According to an article written by Alexa Mills, published in the September 2, 2016, issue of the Washington Post titled, "The story of the only known lynching on a U.S. military base in American history," Mills wrote that, "the FBI and the War Department failed to obtain — and in some cases ignored — critical information about the crime."
FBI Files
110 pages of FBI files covering the Felix Hall case. The FBI engaged in a 17-month investigation into the death of Hall.
According to the case file Hall left work at the Fort Benning sawmill on Feb. 12, 1941 and told his friends that he was going to the colored PX on the base. He was never seen alive again.
The files mention three potential suspects. The main suspect, Henry J. Smith, was the white foreman at the Fort Benning sawmill where Hall had been assigned. Five black soldiers told FBI investigators that Smith threatened to kill Hall the day before he went missing.
The files include notes on the FBI’s interview of Sgt. Frank O. Williams, who had trained Hall. The files states, "Williams described Hall as a hardworking young kid...” Hall was described as, “an individual who had never missed a roll call in the morning.” The files note, "Sergeant Williams knew of no trouble in which Hall had been involved and knew no one that disliked victim.”
The FBI concluded that from the position of the body and the location in which it was found,” the FBI report said, “it does not appear that one man could have committed the crime.”
Newspaper Articles
16 full-sheet pages of African American newspapers from 1941 to 1945, containing content about Hall's death. Some articles reflect concerns held by many black people at the time that the Roosevelt Administration was allowing Jim Crow in the military.
The Employment of Negro Troops by Ulysses Lee (1994)
This collection also includes a copy of the book, "The Employment of Negro Troops," by Ulysses Lee, republished in 1994.
In this edition of the book's forward, Brigadier General Harold W. Nelson, Chief of Military History, wrote:
"As in the case of some other titles in the United States Army in World War II series, Ulysses Lee's The Employment of Negro Troops has been long and widely recognized as a standard work on its subject. Although revised and consolidated before publication, the study was written largely between 1947 and 1951. If the now much-cited title has an echo of an earlier period, that very echo testifies to the book's rather remarkable twofold achievement: that Lee wrote it when he did, well before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and that its reputation—for authority and objectivity—has endured so well."
Fort Benning Electronic Press Kit from August 3, 2021, Felix Hall Historical Marker
Video of the speeches and unveiling ceremony at Fort Benning by Lt. Gen. Theodore D. Martin and congressman Sanford D. Bishop
Also see:
Jackie Robinson "Jim Crow" Court Martial & Military Personnel Records
World War II: Eddie Slovik Court Martial and Execution Documents
World War II Port Chicago Disaster/Port Chicago Mutiny Documents Court Martial Files & Film
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