When No Amount of Evidence is Enough for an Arrest
The Moore’s Ford Bridge Lynchings
On July 25, 1946, a white mob lynched two married Black couples near the Moore’s Ford Bridge in rural Georgia, 60 miles east of Atlanta. Two weeks earlier, Roger Malcolm stabbed white farmer Barnette Hester for sexually assaulting his wife Dorothy, who was seven months pregnant. Hester was hospitalized and still in the hospital on the day of the shooting. Roger Malcolm was placed in the Monroe jail. The City of Monroe was the Walton County seat.
On the 25th, Roger’s white boss, J. Loy Harrison, picked up Dorothy Malcolm and her friends, George and Mae Dorsey, to bail out Roger. Roger and George served together in World War II. Harrison paid the $600 bail for Roger.
The three men and two women loaded up in Harrison’s car and headed back to his farm, where Roger and George worked as sharecroppers. Harrison took an indirect route home, taking the four Black people over the Moore’s Ford Brid…
