Lynching of Eliza Woods

Eliza Woods was an African-American woman working as a cook for Jessie Wooten in Jackson, Tennessee. Following Wooten's death, an examination reportedly found arsenic in her stomach, and it was noted that Woods kept a box of rat poison at her home. Based on this, local residents concluded that Woods was responsible for Wooten's death.

On 19 August 1886, a crowd reported to number around 1,000 people gathered and removed Woods from jail. She was hanged naked in front of the courthouse, and bullets were then fired into her body. The lynching has been noted by historians for two distinctive features: the victim was a woman, which was unusual among lynchings of the period, and the mob that carried it out was biracial.

No trial had been held to determine Woods's guilt before she was killed. Three years later, in 1889, Wooten's husband allegedly confessed to killing his wife himself. This alleged confession came after he had been committed to an insane asylum, a circumstance that has been noted as bearing on how the confession should be weighed.

The killing of Eliza Woods was among the early cases documented by Ida B. Wells, who later became a prominent anti-lynching campaigner and journalist. In 2020, a historical marker detailing the lynching was installed at the Jackson courthouse where Woods had been hanged, publicly acknowledging the event more than 130 years after it occurred.

No criminal charges or convictions are recorded in connection with Woods's death; the person alleged to have made a later confession regarding Wooten's death was never formally charged, and that claim remains unverified beyond the secondary account.