Before you continue
This case involves sexual violence and crimes against children. Casepin presents the record in neutral, non-graphic language. Choose whether to continue.
Unsolved case · 1910
The short answer
Allen Brooks, a Black handyman, was lynched by a mob of thousands in Dallas, Texas, on March 3, 1910, after being accused of raping a young white girl. He was dragged from the Dallas County Courthouse and hanged from a telephone pole at Elks Arch; no one was ever charged.
The coverage index
No one's coverage is attached to this file yet.
Know great coverage of this case?
A documentary, a podcast episode, a careful long-form video. Suggest it and an editor will review it before it appears here.
Suggest coverage for Lynching of Allen BrooksThe case file
Allen Brooks was a Black man living in Dallas, Texas, believed to have been born into slavery around 1852 in Maryland. He was in his late 50s or 60s at the time of his death and worked as a handyman in Dallas. In late February 1910, Brooks was accused of raping Mary Beuvens, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, after he had been fixing her family's furnace and the child went missing before the two were found together. George Keaton Jr., director of the nonprofit Remembering Black Dallas, has stated there was no proof that Brooks was guilty of the alleged rape. Brooks was jailed and formally indicted the following day, and due to fears for his safety he was moved among several jails outside Dallas, eventually being held in Sherman, Texas, by early March.
On March 3, 1910, Brooks was brought to the Dallas County Courthouse to face trial. A crowd had gathered before his arrival, and he was held in the courthouse's jury room as the building filled with people by 9:00 a.m. Proceedings were recessed after his newly assigned lawyer requested time to consult, and by 10:00 a.m. at least 1,000 people were inside the courthouse; a ladder was placed against the building. Around 11:15 a.m., the mob overwhelmed between 70 and 150 law enforcement officers, including Ben E. Cabell, none of whom used firearms in defense. The mob reached Brooks on the second floor, tied a rope around his neck, and pulled him out a window. He landed on his head on the street, was further beaten by the crowd, and may have died from these injuries. His body was dragged by car to Elks Arch at Main and Akard streets, where he was hanged from a telephone pole or iron spike. Onlookers took pieces of the pole and his clothing as souvenirs. Estimates of the mob's size ranged from 2,000 to 6,000 people.
In the aftermath, Dallas Sheriff A. L. Ledbetter said protecting Brooks had been impossible. State Senator Erasmus Gilbert Senter publicly criticized the mob, though this view was not widely shared locally, and many newspapers defended the mob's actions. An official investigation never identified any mob members, and no one was ever charged. Postcards depicting the lynching were printed and mailed by the thousands; a federal prosecutor declined to intervene, saying only "the law of common decency" had been violated. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram produced a special edition on the lynching within hours, selling thousands of copies. Elks Arch was removed within a year.
The lynching site remained unmarked for 111 years. In 2018, the Dallas City Council approved efforts toward a memorial, and the nonprofit Remembering Black Dallas, through its subsidiary the Dallas County Justice Initiative, secured funding from the Equal Justice Initiative to place a historical marker in 2021 — Dallas County's first such marker — along with scholarships for students studying the history of racist violence and the civil rights movement in Dallas. A second marker was placed at the Dallas County Courthouse in July 2023.
6 dated entries · 1852–2023
Allen Brooks is believed to have been born, possibly into slavery, in Maryland.
Brooks is accused of raping two-and-a-half-year-old Mary Beuvens in Dallas, Texas.
A mob of thousands storms the Dallas County Courthouse, drags Brooks from a second-story window, and hangs him from a telephone pole at Elks Arch; he dies without anyone being charged.
Dallas City Council approves efforts to create a memorial to Allen Brooks.
The Dallas County Justice Initiative, with funding from the Equal Justice Initiative, places a historical marker at the lynching site.
A second historical marker is placed at the Dallas County Courthouse where Brooks was held before being lynched.
1 named in this file
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Black handyman lynched by a mob in Dallas, Texas, on March 3, 1910, after being accused of rape; no one was ever charged in connection with his death.[3]
3 cited
Coverage is not a source: every fact in this file rests on the records below.
PressThe New York TimesAccessed Jul 7, 2026
PressCBS NewsAccessed Jul 7, 2026
EncyclopedicWikipediaAccessed Jul 7, 2026
Trust
Are you family of someone named in this file? Corrections and removal requests from victims’ families are prioritized.
Near this case
Credit: Jno.skinner·CC BY-SA 4.0·SourceSOLVEDListenDallas and surrounding North/East Texas towns · 1860s
In the summer of 1860, fires in North and East Texas towns—likely caused by extreme heat and self-igniting phosphorus matches—sparked a moral panic in which vigilantes tortured, lynched, and executed an estimated 30 to 100 Black Texans and white residents accused of abolitionism, on the basis of an insurrection conspiracy historians consider imaginary.
SOLVEDListenDallas, Texas, United States · 2010s
Dallas dentist Kendra Hatcher was shot and killed in her apartment garage on September 2, 2015, in a staged robbery that was actually a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Brenda Delgado out of jealousy over Hatcher's relationship with Delgado's ex-boyfriend.
Image record·Editorial use·SourceSOLVEDListenAmesbury Drive, Dallas, Texas · 2000s
Angela Samota, a Southern Methodist University student, was raped and stabbed to death in her Dallas apartment in October 1984; the case went unsolved for over two decades until DNA evidence identified Donald Andrew Bess Jr., an already-imprisoned repeat sex offender, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010.
Credit: Tthrail·CC BY-SA 4.0·SourceUNSOLVEDListenNear Macon Road bridge over the Wolf River, Memphis, Tennessee · 1917
In May 1917, Ell Persons, a Black woodcutter accused of the rape and decapitation of 15-year-old Antoinette Rappel near Memphis, Tennessee, was seized from custody by a mob and burned alive before a crowd of about 5,000. No one was ever charged in either death, and the lynching contributed to the founding of the Memphis NAACP.
Credit: Uyvsdi·Public domain·SourceUNSOLVEDListenBridge over the North Canadian River near Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma · 1911
Laura Nelson and her teenage son L. D. Nelson, an African-American mother and son, were seized from the Okfuskee County jail in Okemah, Oklahoma, on the night of May 24, 1911, by a mob of white men and hanged from a bridge over the North Canadian River the following morning. No one was ever identified or charged in connection with the killings.
Credit: Unknown author·Public domain·SourceUNSOLVEDListenNewberry, Alachua County, Florida · 1916
In August 1916, a mob of about 200 people in Newberry, Florida, took six Black residents from jail and hanged them from a single tree after a Black man, Boisey Long, killed a white constable attempting to arrest him; no one was ever arrested for the killings.
