The Lynching of Dana Adams

Marker Text: On April 20, 1893, a mob of at least 50 white railroad workers lynched 19-year-old Dana Adams in Saline County near the Union Pacific depot. That morning, Mr. Adams and three other Black men were in the waiting room of the train station when a white worker ordered them to leave without justification, leading to an altercation. Police arrested Mr. Adams after the white man accused him of attempted murder. Accusations lodged against Black people were rarely subjected to serious scrutiny during this era. The mere mention of Black-on-white violence regularly led to criminalization and racial terror violence. Within hours of his arrest, Mr. Adams was put on trial and, without a lawyer to defend him, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. Ignoring rumors about plans to lynch Mr. Adams, the police put Mr. Adams on a train headed out of town, but the lynch mob disconnected the train car holding Mr. Adams and abducted him. Police officers allowed the mob to drag him off the train, handcuffed and pleading for his life, and hang him from a telegraph pole at the Union Pacific depot. Several white men stripped the clothes from his body to take as souvenirs. Although more than 200 spectators attended the lynching, no one was held accountable for lynching Dana Adams.