Lynching in America / The Lynching of Bob Brackett

Marker Text: On August 11, 1897, Bob Brackett, a Black man, was lynched by a mob of at least 1,000 white people in Reems Creek Township. Mr. Brackett was a traveling laborer working in the Asheville, North Carolina area. On August 8, 1897, a white woman from Weaverville reported an assault. Race-based suspicion was immediately directed towards Black men in the area. On August 10, despite a lack of evidence and no investigation, a mob of white men seized Mr. Brackett at the home of a local reverend in nearby Barnardsville, and Mr. Brackett was detained in the Buncombe County Jail in Asheville. An angry white mob stormed the jail, only to discover that the sheriff had taken Mr. Brackett on the train to Raleigh. Determined to lynch Mr. Brackett, the mob abducted him from the sheriff at the Terrell train station and marched him approximately 12 miles by foot towards the location of the reported attack. Before making it to Weaverville, the mob of at least 1,000 lynched Mr. Brackett on the grounds of the Hemphill School. During this era, unfounded suspicion was regularly directed at African Americans, who were burdened with a presumption of quilt that made them vulnerable to lawless white mob violence, especially when a white woman reported an assault. Racial terror lynchings were bold acts to maintain white domination, and local officials granted impunity to mob participants. No one was ever held accountable for the lynching of Bob Brackett.