On September 19, Joiner led a twenty-five-mile march of several hundred blacks (freedmen), as well as a few whites, from Albany, Georgia, to Camilla, the Mitchell County seat, to attend a Republican political rally on the courthouse square.
[4] The local sheriff and "citizens committee" in the majority-white town warned the black and white activists that they would be met with violence, and demanded that they surrender their guns, even though carrying weapons was legal and customary at the time.
[4] The marchers refused to give up their guns and continued to the courthouse square, where a group of local whites, quickly deputized by the sheriff, fired upon them.
This assault forced the Republicans and freedmen to retreat into the swamps as locals gave chase, killing an estimated nine to fifteen of the black rally participants while wounding forty others.
"[4] The Camilla Massacre was the culmination of smaller acts of anti-Black violence committed by white inhabitants that had plagued southwest Georgia since the end of the Civil War.