"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
–Ida B. Wells
A Brief Version of the Lynching of Ell Persons on May 22, 1917
In May, 1917 the decapitated body of a 16 year old white girl, named Antoinette Rappel, a student at Treadwell School, was found at the old Wolf River Bridge near what is now Summer Ave. Suspicion fell on Ell Persons, an African American woodcutter who lived nearby. Persons was arrested twice, interrogated twice and released twice before being captured a third time and reportedly beaten into a confession.
Upon his capture by a mob local papers announced that he would be burned the next morning. The crowd gathered to watch was estimated at 3,000. Vendors set up stands among the crowd and sold sandwiches and snacks. It was reportedly a carnival-like atmosphere.
Persons was hauled to a cleared space beside the abutment on the west side of the river. Containers of gasoline were poured over his body. Some complained that too much gasoline was used and he burned too fast.
Once his charred body had cooled, he was decapitated, and the severed head was photographed and printed on postcards.
No one was ever arrested for the crime.
Negro is Burned for Murder of Child
...Not a shot was fired. The mob worked quietly and apparently under able leadership. The mob worked quietly and there was no disorder. After the lynching the mob disappeared. It was rumored that the other men implicated by Persons would not be lynched.
Negro Burned to Death by a Mob in Tennessee
Self-Confessed Murderer of Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Is Summarily Executed
By the Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn., May 22 – Ell persons, negro, confessed murderer of Antoinette Rappal several weeks ago, was burned to death near the scene of the crime, on the outskirts of Memphis, at 9 o'clock today. A mob estimated at from 2,000 to 3,000 witnessed the death of the negro.
Mob Burns Negro Who Killed Girl
Memphis, May 23. – While more than 10,000 persons looked on, Ell Persons, negro, confessed murderer of pretty 16-year-old Antoinette Rappal, was burned to death by a mob of unmasked men Tuesday.
The lynching took place in a steel cage specially constructed for the burning of the negro on the exact spot where the murder was committed.
Several hundred women and girls stood by and watched the death agony of the negro who had confessed chopping off the head of the young school girl and then assaulting her dead body.
Two markers will memorialize the tragic and shameful events that occurred here in the spring of 1917.
Both markers, approved Thursday by the Shelby County Historical Commission, will mention the two victims of those events.
Antoinette Rappel, a 15-year-old white girl who was brutally assaulted and murdered on her way to school April 30, 1917.
Ell Persons, a 50-something black woodcutter accused of the crime who was brutally assaulted and murdered by a lynch mob May 22 that year.
