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…
On the afternoon of July 7th, 1920, Ed Roach was lynched by a mob of approximately 200 white terrorists. He was wrongly identified as the person who attempted to assault a young white girl. He was arrested and taken to jail. A mob gathered at the jail, brought him to…
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…