Black Alabama pastor says he was wrongfully arrested while watering his neighbor’s flowers

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

August 25, 2022

By Minyvonne Burke, NBC News

Michael Jennings was charged with obstructing government operations. The charge was dropped in June.

Pastor Michael Jennings was detained by police (Childersburg Police Department Body Camera via the Law Offices of Harry Daniels)

A Black pastor in Alabama said he was wrongfully arrested and charged with a crime while watering his neighbor’s flowers.

Video of Michael Jennings’ arrest May 22 was released by his lawyers this week, “clearing the way for legal action against the officers,” they said in a news release.

In the 20-minute-long video, obtained by NBC News, a Childersburg officer approaches Jennings while he is standing on the side of a home watering plants. When the officer asks Jennings what he is doing, Jennings responds, “watering flowers.”

[…]

The officer then tells Jennings that police received a call about a suspicious person at the home.

[…]

When the officer asks for identification, Jennings declines to provide it, telling the officer that he has not done anything wrong. He also tells the officer that he’s former law enforcement.

Read about how the interaction unfolded.

Jennings joins a long line of Black people who have been arrested while completing daily activities such as waiting for the bus.

Find more articles like these in ABHM’s breaking news section.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.