Bleeding Kansas was a series of violent clashes between supporters and opponents of slavery over control of the new territory of Kansas. It is also known as “Bloody Kansas” and the Border War. The conflict intensified the ongoing debate over the future of slavery in … Read MoreBleeding Kansas (1854-1861)
The Slocum Massacre occurred on July 29, 1910 in Slocum, Texas, an unincorporated community in southeast Anderson County. The city used to be home to a thriving African American community with several businesses and farms owned by black residents. Leading up to the massacre, a … Read MoreThe Slocum Massacre (1910)
One of the last of the major riots of the “Red Summer” of 1919, the so-called race riot in Elaine, Arkansas was in fact a racial massacre. Though exact numbers are unknown, it is estimated that over 200 African Americans were killed, along with five whites, during the white … Read MoreElaine, Arkansas Riot (1919)
The Carroll County Courthouse Massacre occurred on March 17, 1886 in Carrollton, the county seat of Carroll County, Mississippi. An incident from earlier in the year led to the bloodshed in March that left twenty-three people dead. The events leading up to the massacre began in January when … Read MoreThe Carroll County Courthouse Massacre (1886)
In late 1871, Chicot County, Arkansas, was taken over by several hundred African Americans led by state senator and county judge James W. Mason. The murder of an African American lawyer, Wathal G. Wynn, by three white men—John W. Saunders, Jasper Dugan, and Curtis Garrett—angered … Read MoreChicot County Race War of 1871
On July 14, 1946, four African American sharecroppers were lynched at Moore’s Ford in northeast Georgia in an event now described as the “last mass lynching in America.” Yet the killers of George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcolm, and Dorothy Malcolm were never brought … Read MoreThe Moore’s Ford Lynching (July 1946)
The murder of Mack Charles Parker is considered one of the last civil rights era lynchings. On the night of April 24, 1959, a mob abducted Parker from the Pearl River County Jail in Poplarville, Mississippi, where he was awaiting trial for the alleged crime … Read MoreMack Charles Parker (1936-1959)
In 1946, U.S. Army Sergeant Isaac Woodard challenged a Greyhound bus driver while traveling from Georgia to South Carolina after being discharged from service in World War II. Police officers, who met him at the next stop, brutally attacked him and left him permanently blind. … Read MoreIsaac Woodard (1919-1992)
On July 8, 1876, the small town of Hamburg, South Carolina erupted in violence as the community’s African American militia clashed with whites from the surrounding area. Hamburg was a small all-black community across the river from Augusta, Georgia. Like many African American communities in … Read MoreThe Hamburg Massacre (1876)
Around 10 P.M. on Saturday, July 9, 1938, a mob (estimated by local paper to be two hundred strong) of white residents of Wapato, a small town in the Yakima Valley region of Washington State, instigated what the Yakima Morning Herald termed a “miniature race … Read MoreThe Wapato Race Riot, 1938
