Location: Norfolk, Virginia
Age: 38
Year: 1951
Joseph H. Mann, 38, was a minister who was killed by two unidentified white men in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1951.
Mann was abducted by the men while walking along the street.
Accounts report that Mann was taken to the house of another Black person, which was set alight by the white assailants. They then pushed Mann into the flames.
He died from his injuries and burns a few days later.
Before he died, Mann allegedly stated that his attackers had intended their actions to be a warning to Black people moving into white neighborhoods.
For more information, search CRRJ’s archive.
Read more about Mann’s death on the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive
About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.