The Phoenix Massacre / Lynching in America

Marker Text: From November 9-14, 1898, white mobs in Phoenix lynched at least eight Black men and one Black woman and terrorized Black residents. The November 8 general election was the first since the enactment of the 1895 state constitution, which effectively barred Black people from voting. That morning at the local polling site, a white poll manager was killed and a prominent white supporter of Black voting rights was repeatedly shot during an altercation regarding the latter’s attempt to help Black men participate in the political process. Already enraged by the threat of Black political action, hundreds of white citizens immediately began to hunt down Black people they claimed were present. On November 9, a mob rounded up a group of Black people in the woods near Rehoboth United Methodist Church and fatally shot five: Wade Hampton McKinney, Jesse Williams, Columbus Jackson, Drayton Watts, and George Logan. Others were wounded or managed to flee. On November 10, a mob shot Essex Harrison in the heart in the same woods and dumped his body with the others. That day white mobs also lynched Ben Collins and Jeff Darling. On November 14, Eliza Goode, an elderly Black woman, was killed in her home by white men firing indiscriminately into houses on her street. No one was ever held accountable for their role in these brutal lynchings, and arbitrary beatings and whippings of Black people in the region continued for years afterward.