Unsolved case · 1917
Also known as John Henry Harrison · Harry Harrison
The short answer
John Henry Harrison, a 38-year-old Black laborer, was taken from a train and shot at least seventeen times by a masked mob in Malvern, Arkansas, on February 2, 1922, after his arrest on accusations of harassing white women.
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Suggest coverage for Lynching of John HarrisonJohn Henry Harrison, also referred to in records as Harry Harrison or John Harris, was a 38-year-old African-American man living in Malvern, Hot Spring County, Arkansas. According to the 1920 census, he was married and worked as a laborer at a local lumber mill. Draft registration records from 1917 show he lived at 405 Vine Street in Malvern. In early 1922, reports emerged that Harrison had been stalking and threatening women. One woman reported this to Hot Spring County Sheriff Donald F. Bray, who arrested Harrison in February 1922.
Word of the arrest, along with claims that Harrison had been harassing white women, spread quickly through Malvern, and a mob gathered on the evening of February 2, 1922. Fearing a lynching, Sheriff Bray attempted to move Harrison out of town by road toward Arkadelphia, Arkansas, but found the roads blocked. He then tried to smuggle Harrison out by train, hiding him under a seat in the segregated "colored" section around 10:30 p.m. Before the train departed, roughly 20 men stopped it and searched car by car. Harrison was found, dragged a short distance away, and shot at least seventeen times, killing him.
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary later recorded this killing as the 10th of 61 documented lynchings in the United States in 1922, and one of five that year in Arkansas.
In 1923, Harrison's sister, Callie Henry, attempted to sue Sheriff D. S. Bray, deputies W. T. Gamble and S. H. Leiper, and W. H. Cooper over her brother's death while in their custody, as well as alleged mob leaders identified as Clarence Chamberlain, R. S. Hodges, Leonard Stanley, and Ray Galina. Courts ruled against her the following year, and no one was held criminally responsible for Harrison's killing.
Harrison's death is included among documented lynchings memorialized at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which opened April 26, 2018, and displays hanging steel markers representing U.S. counties where lynchings occurred.
John Harrison registers for the military draft while living at 405 Vine Street, Malvern, Arkansas.
U.S. Census records John Harrison, 38, as married and working as a laborer at a Malvern lumber mill.
Sheriff Donald F. Bray arrests Harrison after a woman reports he had been stalking and threatening her.
A mob of masked men stops a train leaving Malvern, drags Harrison off, and shoots him at least seventeen times, killing him.
Callie Henry, Harrison's sister, files suit against the sheriff, deputies, and alleged mob leaders over her brother's death.
Courts rule against Callie Henry's lawsuit.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opens in Montgomery, Alabama, memorializing documented lynchings including Harrison's.
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
38-year-old African-American laborer lynched by a mob in Malvern, Arkansas, on February 2, 1922.[3]
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Credit: State of ArkansasEditorial useSourceUNSOLVEDListenLittle Rock, Arkansas, United States · 2010s
Ebby Steppach, an 18-year-old Little Rock, Arkansas high school student who had reported being gang raped days earlier, disappeared on October 25, 2015, and her remains were found in a Chalamont Park drainage pipe in May 2018, with her death classified as a homicide.
SOLVEDListenHolland, Arkansas, United States · 2000s
In December 2002, 13-year-old Kacie Woody of Holland, Arkansas, was abducted from her home by 47-year-old David Leslie Fuller, a California man who had posed online as a teenage boy to groom her. Fuller raped and murdered her before killing himself as law enforcement closed in on a storage unit in Conway, Arkansas.
Credit: TthrailCC BY-SA 4.0SourceUNSOLVEDListenNear 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: UyvsdiPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenBridge 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 authorPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenNewberry, 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.
