On May 25, a seventy two year old black man, Berry Washington, was lynched in Milan, Georgia, after he came to the defense of two young black girls being harassed by two drunken white men, John Dowdy and Lewis Evans. The men attacked the girls’ house late at night brandishing weapons and demanding they open the door. The girls ran to Washington’s house for protection. Washington, the steward of a local black church, came out with his shotgun and killed Dowdy in a gun battle. Washington turned himself in to the sheriff. The night after the shooting, a mob of 75 to 100 whites pulled him from jail, hanged him from a post and then shot his corpse to pieces. No one was ever arrested.