Racial Terrorism: The Abduction of Mr. Fred Rouse

On Tuesday, December 6, 1921, Mr. Fred Rouse, an African-American husband, father of three, and non-union butcher for Swift & Co., was attacked by white union strikers and agitators in the Niles City Stockyards (now part of Fort Worth). Mr. Rouse sustained stab wounds and broken bones. His skull was…

Racial Terror Lynchings / The Lynching of Lige Daniels

On August 2, 1920, Lige Daniels, an African American man, was confined inside the county jail in Center, Texas awaiting trial. News of his arrest spread quickly through Shelby County and the state. Mr. Daniels was accused of killing a white woman during a time when deep racial hostility burdened…

The Lynching of Arthur Henry

Shortly after midnight on Friday, November 27, 1925, three white men abducted a 35-year-old Black man named Arthur Henry from his bed at Orange General Hospital. Nearly two weeks later, Mr. Henry’s lifeless body was found in the unincorporated community of Conway, shot through the heart. Hours before his abduction,…

Leonard Woods Lynched

Leonard Woods, a black coal miner from Jenkins, KY, was lynched near here on the night of 29-30 Nov. 1927. Officers had arrested Woods for allegedly killing Herschel Deaton, a white man from Coeburn, VA, and had taken him to the Whitesburg, KY jail. On the day of Deaton’s funeral,…

The Lynching of Raymond Byrd

On the night of August 15, 1926, a mob of rowdy Wythe County citizens forced their way into the Wythe County jail that stood on this site until 1928. Overpowering the county jailer, the mob breached the cell in which a black man, Raymond Arthur Byrd, was incarcerated. The mob…