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 September 7, 1889, a white mob abducted a Black teenager named George Bush from the county jail in Columbia and lynched him. He was only 17 or 18 years old when he was killed. On September 5, Mr. Bush was arressted and held in the county jail for having…
In the predawn hours of July 10, 1897, an armed mob of white men brutally lynched Erastus Brown, a Black husband and father of two, near the Bourbeuse River Bridge in Union, Missouri. Mr. Brown was no more than 20 years old at the time of his death. On July…
On April 14, 1906, three black men, Horace B. Duncan, Fred Coker and Will Allen were lynched without a trial…
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….
Near this place James T. Scott, a Black janitor in the medical school at MU, was killed on April 29th, 1923. A mob brought Mr. Scott to the bridge, placed a noose around his neck, and pushed him over the railing while hundreds of spectators watched. MU’s presence and the…