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Roy Belton was a 19-year-old white man arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma with a female accomplice for the August 21, 1920 hijacking and shooting of a white man, local taxi driver Homer Nida. He was taken from the county jail by a group of armed men, after a confrontation with the sheriff, and taken to an isolated area where he was lynched.
The Reno Gang, also known as the Reno Brothers Gang and The Jackson Thieves, were a group of criminals that operated in the Midwestern United States during and just after the American Civil War. Though short-lived, the gang carried out the first three peacetime train robberies in U.S. history. Most of the stolen money was never recovered.
White caps were groups involved in the whitecapping movement who were operating in southern Indiana in the late 19th century. They engaged in vigilante justice and lynchings, with modern viewpoints describing their actions as domestic terrorism. They became common in the state following the American Civil War and lasted until the turn of the 20th century. White caps were especially active in Crawford and neighboring counties in the late 1880s. Several members of the Reno Gang were lynched in 1868, causing an international incident. Some of the members had been extradited to the United States from Canada and were supposed to be under federal protection. Lynchings continued against other criminals, but when two possibly innocent men were killed in Corydon in 1889, Indiana responded by cracking down on the white cap vigilante groups, beginning in the administration of Isaac P. Gray.
Laura and L. D. Nelson were an African-American mother and son who were lynched on May 25, 1911, near Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. They had been seized from their cells in the Okemah county jail the night before by a group of up to 40 white men, reportedly including Charley Guthrie, father of the folk singer Woody Guthrie. The Associated Press reported that Laura was raped. She and L. D. were then hanged from a bridge over the North Canadian River. According to one source, Laura had a baby with her who survived the attack.
Claude Neal was a 23-year-old African-American farmhand who was arrested in Jackson County, Florida, on October 19, 1934, for allegedly raping and killing Lola Cannady, a 19-year-old white woman missing since the preceding night. Circumstantial evidence was collected against him, but nothing directly linked him to the crime. When the news got out about his arrest, white lynch mobs began to form. In order to keep Neal safe, County Sheriff Flake Chambliss moved him between multiple jails, including the county jail at Brewton, Alabama, 100 miles (160 km) away. But a lynch mob of about 100 white men from Jackson County heard where he was, and brought him back to Jackson County.
Raymond Arthur Byrd was an African-American farmhand who was lynched by a mob in Wythe County, Virginia on August 15, 1926.
The lynching of the Frenches of Warsaw took place in Warsaw, Gallatin County, Kentucky on May 3, 1876, between 1 am and 2 am on a Wednesday morning. Benjamin and Mollie French, African Americans, were lynched by a white mob for the murder of another African American, which was unusual for this period. Lake Jones was an elderly black man who had faithfully served a white family named Howard, both before and after his emancipation from slavery. The Frenches were accused of poisoning Lake Jones with arsenic and intending to steal his money.
The lynching of Marie Thompson of Shepherdsville took place in the early morning on June 15, 1904, in Lebanon Junction, Bullitt County, Kentucky, for her killing of John Irvin, a white landowner. The day before Thompson had attempted to defend her son from being beaten by Irvin in a dispute; he ordered her off the land. As she was walking away from him, he attacked her with a knife and she killed him in self-defense with a razor. She was arrested and put in the county jail.
George Armwood was an African American who was lynched in Princess Anne, Maryland, on October 18, 1933. His murder was the last recorded lynching in Maryland.
The lynching of Paul Reed and Will Cato occurred in Statesboro, Georgia on August 16, 1904. Five members of a white farm family, the Hodges, had been murdered and their house burned to hide the crime. Paul Reed and Will Cato, who were African-American, were tried and convicted for the murders. Despite militia having been brought in from Savannah to protect them, the two men were taken by a mob from the courthouse immediately after their trials, chained to a tree stump, and burned. In the immediate aftermath, four more African-Americans were shot, three of them dying, and others were flogged.
The lynching of Jay Lynch, age 28, took place in Lamar, Missouri, on May 28, 1919. That year had 83 lynchings in the United States. This was one of four against white men.
Horace Maples was an African-American man who was lynched by a mob of approximately 2,000 people in Huntsville, Alabama, on September 7, 1904. Maples had been accused of murder and was being held in the county jail when it was set on fire by the crowd. He jumped from a second story window in the jail, but was seized by the crowd and hanged on a tree on the courthouse lawn. Maples' body was then shot full of bullets by people in the crowd.
Henry Choate was an 18-year-old African-American teenager who was lynched by a mob in Columbia, Tennessee, on November 13, 1927. Choate was accused of having assaulted 16-year old Sarah Harlan, a white girl, and was taken to the Columbia jail, despite Harlan not being able to identify Choate as the attacker. A mob numbering hundreds of people sprang him from the jail, dragged him through the city behind a car, and then hanged him from the courthouse. During the lynching, Harlan's mother begged the mob to spare Choate's life. A grand jury declined to file any charges.
A mob of white Vigo County, Indiana, residents lynched George Ward, a black man, on February 26, 1901 in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the suspected murder of a white woman. An example of a spectacle lynching, the event was public in nature and drew a crowd of over 1,000 white participants. Ward was dragged from a jail cell in broad daylight, struck in the back of the head with a sledgehammer, hanged from a bridge, and burned. His toes and the hobnails from his boots were collected as souvenirs. A grand jury was convened but no one was ever charged with the murder of Ward. It is the only known lynching in Vigo County. The lynching was memorialized 120 years later with a historical marker and ceremony.
Ed and his son George Hartley were lynched in Camden, Benton County, Tennessee by a mob on October 20, 1922. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary they were the 54th and 55th of 61 lynchings during 1922 in the United States. The two were the only lynchings in the state of Tennessee and of the 61 lynchings they were 2 of 6 white victims.
William Keemer was the victim of a racial terror spectacle lynching in 1875 in Greenfield, Indiana. Keemer, a Black man, was dragged from his jail cell in Hancock County, Indiana on June 25, 1875 by a white mob from Hancock, Shelby, and Rush counties. Keemer was hung at the Hancock County fairgrounds and over 1,000 people traveled to view the body. Keemer was arrested on June 24 for an alleged sexual assault against a white women in Carthage, Indiana. No trial was held for the alleged crime and William Keemer remains innocent. In 2021 a historical marker commemorating the anti-Black violence committed against Keemer was approved by the Indiana Historical Bureau.
On October 11, 1878, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Ed Warner, William Chambers, and Dan Harris, Sr. were lynched in Posey County, Indiana, near the town of Mount Vernon. These men, who were allegedly connected to the robbery of a brothel, were killed by a white mob who broke into the jail where they were being held. Two other men, Dan Harris, Jr. and John Harris, were also lynched in the days leading up to October 11, in connection with the same alleged offense. This racial terror lynching is the largest reported lynching in Indiana's history.
Bud Rowland and Jim Henderson, two Black men, were lynched in Rockport, Indiana on December 16, 1900. The following day, Joe Holly was lynched in Boonville, Indiana for the same alleged crime.
William Andrews was an African American laborer who was lynched by a white mob in Princess Anne, Maryland on June 9, 1897. Andrews, then 17, was tried, convicted, and hanged all in one day after being accused of assaulting Mrs. Benjamin T. Kelley.
The lynching of Richard Puryear took place on March 15, 1894, at Stroudsburg, Monroe County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A mostly white mob seized and hanged Richard Puryear, a Black railroad worker accused of murdering a white storekeeper, after he escaped from prison. A grand jury investigated the lynching, but no members of the mob faced criminal charges or convictions in Puryear's murder.
References
- 1 2 3 "Historical perspectives: Crime log: Gypsies murdered nearly 90 years ago; Clay County scene of lynching". indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
- 1 2 3 McCormick, Mike (4 March 2018). "Historical Perspective: The Clay County Lynching of George Scott". Terre Haute Tribune-Star. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
- ↑ Campney, Brent M. S. (2019). Hostile Heartland : Racism, Repression, and Resistance in the Midwest. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-05133-3. OCLC 1137798113.
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