Face in the Window: A Paranormal Sentinel Against Black Lynching

By

Sherman N. Miller

 7/22/2006

When I hear William Shakespearean literary quotes, I have not taken them to heart as I might Socratic philosophies. Yet Shakespeare’s quote, “The evils men do live after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” is one that I have come to believe has some profound philosophical underpinning.

Carrolton, Alabama has the infamous “Face in the Window” that is a lingering of a lynch mob in 1878 that still haunts this town today.   The website http://www.haunted-places.com/paranorm.htm#ALABAMA  shares a tale of a planned lynching of a black man, Henry Wells that turned into a paranormal nightmare for Carrolton.

“Pickens County Courthouse. No one really knew who set the fire that burnt down the original Carrollton Courthouse on November 16, 1876. But everyone blamed Henry Wells, a rowdy black man who lived outside of town. The sheriff arrested him and held him in the attic of a building that was to become the new courthouse.

“One afternoon in February 1878, a lynch mob gathered in front of the new courthouse and demanded that Wells be turned over to them. As a violent thunderstorm approached the town, Wells peered out at the crowds through the garret window at the top of the building. Suddenly, a lightening bolt struck the roof, killing Wells. The flash of brilliant light etched his defiant expression into the window pane, and no amount of scrubbing or solvents in the decades since has been able to erase it. And on those when thunderstorms roll through Pickens County, it is said the ghost of Henry Wells stares out from the garret window of the old courthouse.”

My wife recounted as a black girl growing up in Alabama in the Nineteen Forties and Fifties how blacks understood that looking up at the face in the window in public view was unacceptable. However, in mid-July 2006 it was interesting to see my wife struggle to help our two granddaughters understand what a lynching was as they looked up at the face in the window.  Her explanation was complicated by the fact that our granddaughters are biracial. As our young grandchildren’s grandmothers are close friends, these girls have no immediate history of the disdain that has existed between the races.

It was a bright sunshiny day in Carrolton, Alabama during our visit, so the face in the window was very clear – there is even an arrow pointing to it. Although our granddaughters said that they could see the face, they showed no fear over this clear symbolism of yesteryear’s lynching of black folks. On the other hand, the face in the window gives some credence to Shakespeare’s comment that the evils men do live after them because today a paranormal event continues to put into a picture the evil of Alabama yesteryear’s black lynching antics.

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