Lynching in America / The Lynching of Tom Keith

Marker Text: On the night of August 16, 1899, a white mob lynched an elderly African American man named Tom Keith after he was accused of falling asleep in the same room as white children. Mr. Keith, who was described in news reports as “old and trusted,” lived in the home of his white employer, J.B. Hawkins, Jr., and worked as a long-time employee on Hawkins’s farm in Greenville. On August 16, news spread that Hawkins had found Mr. Keith asleep in the same room as his daughter and son that morning. Hawkins reportedly struck Mr. Keith on the head with a gun, waking him violently. Mr. Keith explained that he must have wandered into the room by accident after having been drinking the night before. When Hawkins told him to pack his things and leave town, or else he “would kill him,” Mr. Keith left. When the story reached Hawkins’s white neighbors, they became enraged and organized a mob of white men to find Mr. Keith. Although information is scarce about exactly where the mob found Mr. Keith, the mob likely captured him somewhere along or near what is now Roe Ford Road.The mob then tied Mr. Keith to a tree, shot him multiple times, and threw his body weighed down with stones into the Saluda River. Many Black people during this era were lynched following unconfirmed suspicions of wrongdoing before they ever had a chance to stand trial and defend themselves. No one who participated in the mob was held accountable for Tom Keith’s lynching.