Hazen was named for William Babcock Hazen, who served under General Sherman in his “March to the Sea.” The town, established in 1903 to house laborers working on the Newlands Irrigation Project south of here, included hotels, saloons, brothels, churches, and schools. In 1905 the first train came through on…
On June 11, 1902, a white mob of more than fifty men abducted two African American children, ages 13 and 11. named Harrison and James Gillespie from the Rowan County jail and lynched them in front of a crowd of over 400 people. The two boys had been arrested and…
Between 1885 and 1921, white mobs terrorized and lynched at least six Black people in Chatham County, creating a legacy of violence, intimidation, and injustice. On September 28, 1885, a white mob in Pittsboro lynched four Black people—Jerry Finch and his wife, Harriet, John Pattishall, and Lee Tyson—following the unsolved…
On October 10, 1908, a mob of white people brutally shot, tortured, and lynched Frank Johnson, Dee Dawkins, and William Fielder near Hickory, Mississippi. On October 8, a Black sharecropper named Shep Jones had a disagreement about his work schedule with his white employer. The white planter assaulted Mr. Jones,…
For decades, African American men were lynched by white mobs in Lafayette County. Most of these men were lynched because of interactions with white women which were characterized as “inappropriate” or “assaults.” These allegations against Black people were rarely subject to serious scrutiny. Instead, mobs frequently pulled lynching victims from…
On Good Friday, April 13, 1906, Springfield and Greene County had a thriving population of African American professionals, business owners, and community leaders. By the early hours of Easter Sunday, the city had been overwhelmed by hate and violence because of a false allegation that two black men, Horace B….