Lynching Print from North Carolina

Lynching Print from North Carolina

In August of 1906, three African American men were lynched in Rowan County, North Carolina. They had been in the local jail, held on charges that they had murdered the white Lyerly family in their beds a month earlier. The jail, defended by an apathetic group of federal troops, was stormed by a white mob that captured the three men—Nease Gillespie, John Gillespie, and Jack Dillingham—and carried them off into the woods, where they were lynched. The white mob tortured them, mutilated their bodies with bullets, and hanged them from a tree. One of the white men responsible for the lynching, George Hall, was arrested and convicted for the crime, receiving 15 years of hard labor for his participation. He was the only man convicted for the lynching. Hall’s conviction was so astounding that lynchings in North Carolina tapered off for a while, as white men were scared they would be held accountable for their actions.

The back of the souvenir picture contains the penciled description: “Remember Nease Gillespie John Gillespie Jack Dillingham They murdered the Lyerly Family but they got theirs just the same Aug 6th 1906 at the Salisbury Court House was shure a worm time I will never forget that night.”