Lynching of Henry Lowry

The lynching of Henry Lowry, on January 26, 1921, was the murder of an African-American man, Henry Lowry, by a mob of white vigilantes in Arkansas. Lowry (also spelled "Lowery"), a tenant farmer, had been on the run after a deadly shootout at the house of planter O. T. Craig on Christmas Day of 1920. Lowry went into hiding in El Paso, Texas; when he was discovered and extradited by train, a group of armed white men boarded the train in Sardis, Mississippi, and took Lowry to Nodena, near Wilson, Arkansas. He was doused in gasoline and burned alive before a mob of 500. A reporter from the Memphis Press witnessed the event, and word of the lynching soon spread around the country, aided by an article William Pickens wrote for The Nation, in which he described eastern Arkansas as "the American Congo".[1]

  1. ^ Lewis, Todd E. (1993). "Mob Justice in the 'American Congo': 'Judge Lynch' in Arkansas during the Decade after World War I". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 52 (2): 156–84. doi:10.2307/40019247. JSTOR 40019247.