ORLANDO, Fla. — A new historical marker has been placed outside of Dr. Wells’ former home in Parramore after extensive research uncovered the lynching of 35-year-old Arthur Henry in 1925.
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Descendants of Arthur Henry gathered outside the site to unveil the marker that can now be seen by all of Orlando as they read his story and the history of Lynching in America.
Details of Henry’s life after moving to Orlando surfaced after five-year research from Harry Coverston, the Equal Justice Initiative and the Alliance for Truth and Justice.
“The reason we don’t know much about it is because there was a concerted effort to bury this story,” said Harry Coverston, lead researcher.
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Through research, Harry discovered that Arthur Henry moved to Orlando in 1920 from Lake City for a better life for blacks in the South. He moved with his wife and mother and was a citrus worker.
Henry and his family lived in Parramore. Thanksgiving Day, 1925, Orlando Police were called to that part of the city to investigate shootings, which ended up in a shooting inside Henry’s home.
Research never gives details of why the police ended up inside Henry’s home. They do say through several different news articles that two detectives and Arthur were all shot and taken to the Orlando General Hospital, which is now Orlando Health, for treatment by a stranger driving past.
“He was shackled to a bed in the boiler room, in the basement because that was the Negro Ward, and the officers were taken upstairs,” said Coverston.
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From the time of being taken to the hospital for treatment, Henry’s hospital room was guarded by an officer who was held at gunpoint by three unidentified white men. A nurse also reported entering the ward in time to see the men exiting with Henry.
“Because the clan was probably the worst kept secret in America. Everybody knew who these people were, but they wore the disguises and the hoods and all. But the things they were involved in were capital crimes,” said Coverston.
They forced Henry into a car and sped away.
Orange County sheriffs suspected a lynching and sent officers to search the southeastern section of the county with a tip that his body could be found eight miles east of Orlando, in Conway, an unincorporated community.
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For countless days, the search was ineffective, and twelve days later, his body was found in Conway, shot, seemingly by the three white men who kidnapped him two weeks earlier.
Arthur Henry was taken back to Lake City. The coroner submitted a report declaring his death a homicide but never found the killer.
Harry said documents of lynched victims never stood trial for their alleged crimes, and their killers never faced prosecution.
Now in Parramore, Henry’s story lives on for people to see and learn about what happened to the citrus worker who moved to Orlando for a better life.
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