Lynching of Joe Holly, Bud Rowland, and Jim Henderson

Bud Rowland and Jim Henderson, two Black men, were lynched in Rockport, Indiana on December 16, 1900. The following day, Joe Holly was lynched in Boonville, Indiana for the same alleged crime.

Lynching
On December 16, 1900, Bud Rowland and Jim Henderson, two Black men, were arrested for the murder of a white barber, Hollie L. Simmons in Rockport, Indiana. He was reportedly jumped by two men and was bashed across the skull with a nail-covered club. The news of the murder spread through town, and suspects were quickly identified that same night. Of those who were questioned, Henderson and Rowland were arrested in Rockport.

Shortly after authorities placed Rowland and Henderson in the local jail, a large group of angry white people used sledgehammers and a broken telegraph pole to ram into the jail. While the mob was getting ready to hang Rowland, he said that he had one more accomplice named ‘Crowfoot’. The white crowd first pulled Rowland out of his cell and hanged him from a tree on the east side of the courthouse, before shooting his body with bullets. The group returned to retrieve Henderson from his cell. They shot him in his cell, dragged him across the courtyard, and hanged him next to Rowland.

After lynching Rowland and Henderson, the white crowd looked for ‘Crowfoot,’ who identified himself as Joe Holly, at a local hotel. Joe Holly was known by several names, including ‘Joe Crowfoot’, ‘Hustling Joe’, ‘Whistling Joe’, and ‘John Rolla’.

News spread that the Spencer County sheriffs took Holly to a jail in the town over, Boonville. On the night of December 17, a crowd of white people from Rockport broke into the Boonville jail. Although Holly pled for mercy, the angry crowd hanged him in front of the Boonville Courthouse. Although not much is known about Holly, it is known that he was from Edmondson, Arkansas. Holly's last wish was to have his body sent to his family, which was never granted. Even less is known about Rowland and Henderson, and their last wishes were never documented.

In Indiana, at least eighteen Black people were lynched between 1877 and 1950.

Memorialization
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) commemorated the lynching of Bud Rowland, Jim Henderson, and Joe Holly in their document, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. The document reported lynchings that occurred in the Southern states, and states outside of the South where anti-Black violence was prevalent. The EJI also memorialized Rowland, Henderson, and Holly in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.