In August 1908, the city of Springfield, Illinois—often celebrated as the hometown of Abraham Lincoln—became the site of one of the most violent race riots in American history. Over the course of just a few days, white mobs rampaged...
William Donnegan was an 84-year-old Black cobbler, property owner, former conductor on the Underground Railroad and longtime resident of Springfield, Illinois, whose wealth and interracial marriage made him a target of white resentment during the infamous Springfield Race Riot...
On July 24, 1919, in the quiet town of Newberry, South Carolina, Elisha Harper, a 25-year-old African American world war I veteran found himself at the center of a mob’s rage. A simple accusation, that he had insulted a...
During the early 20th century, when lynching was a widespread tool of racial terror in the United States, a determined group of women formed the Anti-Lynching Crusaders to combat this horrific practice. This organization, established in 1922 as an...
In the late 19th century, Memphis, Tennessee, was a city rife with racial tension, where economic success for African Americans was often met with hostility. At the heart of this disturbance was Peoples Grocery, a thriving Black-owned store that...
On October 11, 1878, Posey County, Indiana, near the town of Mount Vernon, became the site of the largest reported lynching in the state’s history when a white mob brutally lynched Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Ed Warner, William Chambers,...
Berry Washington, an elderly African American man in his seventies, became a tragic symbol of racial injustice when he was lynched in Milan, Georgia, on May 26, 1919. His crime? Defending two young Black girls from a violent assault...
On April 27, 1899, in Leesburg, Georgia, Mitchell Daniel, a Black community leader, was lynched by white neighbors in what became another dark chapter of racial terror in the United States. His “crime” was talking too much about the...
On August 19, 1886, in the small town of Jackson, Tennessee, a terrible injustice occurred when Eliza Woods, an African-American woman, was brutally lynched by a mob after being falsely accused of poisoning her white employer, Jessie Woolen.
Eliza Woods...
On March 15, 1901, the town of Rome, Tennessee, was marred by a horrific act of racial violence that claimed the life of Ballie Crutchfield, an African American woman. The events leading to her tragic death began with a...
