Josephine Bolling McCall: The Lynching of Elmore McCall

Josephine Bolling McCall reflects upon her father’s lynching in Lowndes County, Alabama- The Lynching of Elmore McCall.

For decades, Elmore Bolling’s family believed myths perpetuated by white people, and even by Rosa Parks, about why he was killed: that he was involved in a love triangle or that he had insulted his assailant’s wife. Though Josephine Bolling McCall’s father was killed when she was 5 years old, it was not until she was 60 that she discovered an article in the Chicago Defender describing the real reason for her father’s killing: “Enraged whites jealous over the success of a Negro, are believed to be the lynchers of Elmore Bolling.”