The Lynching of Edward Roach

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…

The Schafer Jail

The Schafer Jail is of native granite stone and concrete construction. It was completed in 1910, and served McKenzie County for 31 years. It was from this jail that Charles Bannon, the confessed murderer of the six members of the Albert E. Haven Family, was taken by an angry mob…

Lynching in Newton County

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,…

Lynching of John Hartfield

On June 26, 1919, John Hartfield, an African American, was lynched in Ellisville allegedly for raping his White girlfriend. After being apprehended by the county sheriff, he was turned over to a mob. The lynching was announced in advance by newspapers, and thousands of spectators watched as Hartfield was hanged…