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,…
White mobs lynched at least five Black people, including three teenagers, in Anderson County over the course of 17 years. On December 12, 1894, a mob of nearly 500 white men abducted a Black boy named Edward Sullivan from law enforcement and hanged him near Williamston after a white boy…
Near this spot, on June 5, 1902, a white mob lynched a Black man named Wiley Gynn. Mr. Gynn, whose surname was also reported as “Guynn” or Gwynn”, was a 28-year-old Black husband, father, and boarding house proprietor in Bondtown. Earlier that day, a white girl claimed that she had…
On November 14, 1920, a large white mob lynched a 25-year-old Black coal miner named Dave Hurst. Authorities had arrested Mr. Hurst two days earlier after a white woman reported that she had been assaulted by a Black man. During this era, the deep racial hostility that permeated Southern society…
On September 21, 1893, a white mob lynched a young Black man named Thomas Smith in Roanoke, Virginia. The day before, Mr. Smith was accused of assaulting a white woman near the Roanoke City Market. During this era, Black people were burdened with a presumption of guilt that often led…
In 1898, a black man named John Henry James lived and worked in Charlottesville as an ice cream vendor. He had only been a resident of the area for five or six years before July 11th, 1898, when he was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman and arrested. The…