Bud Johnson

Bud Johnson was a Black man whom several accounts describe as a recently returned World War I veteran. On March 12, 1919, a white mob seized him from a police car that was moving him toward Jacksonville, took him to Pace in Santa Rosa County, Florida, tortured him, chained him to a stake, and burned him alive. Members of the mob split his skull with a hatchet and took pieces as souvenirs, then discarded his body in a swamp. Johnson had been accused of assaulting a white woman near Milton. An NAACP deposition reported that people in the crowd suggested the accusation be made after the fact to justify what they had done to him. The NAACP protested to Florida Governor Sidney Catts, who replied that no members of the mob would be tried. No one was held accountable. His killing was among the acts of violence against Black Floridians, including returning servicemen, in the months before the Red Summer of 1919.