Solved case · 1947
Also known as Willie Earle's murder · Willie Earle's lynching
The short answer
Willie Earle, a 24-year-old Black man, was taken from a South Carolina jail cell by a mob of taxi drivers on February 16, 1947, and beaten, stabbed, and shot to death near Greenville. Thirty-one white men were charged in the killing, but all were acquitted at trial.
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Suggest coverage for Lynching of Willie EarleOn February 15, 1947, a Greenville, South Carolina cab driver named Thomas Watson Brown was robbed and stabbed to death in Pickens County. Based on circumstantial evidence, Willie Earle, a 24-year-old Black man, was charged in the attack. He was arrested the next day at his mother's house and taken to the county jail.
On the evening of February 16, 1947, a convoy of taxi drivers drove to the jail and forcibly procured Earle's release. The jailer, J. Ed Gilstrap, later said he turned Earle over to the mob because they had guns. The mob then beat, stabbed, and shot Earle to death. This killing is considered the last lynching to occur in South Carolina, although the 1978 killing of Betty Gardner by four white people has also been described by some as a lynching.
Newly elected Governor Strom Thurmond condemned the murder and directed state police to work with the FBI on the investigation. He also summoned Solicitor Robert T. Ashmore, described as the state's foremost prosecutor, to try the case. More than 150 suspects were questioned, and 31 people — all but three of them taxi drivers — were charged with the crime. Many of the men signed confessions, and some implicated Roosevelt Carlos Hurd as the mob's leader and as the person who killed Earle with a shotgun.
The trial opened in the Greenville County Courthouse on May 5, 1947, presided over by Judge J. Robert Martin. Martin dismissed charges against three defendants for lack of evidence and reduced the charges against seven others to being accessories before the fact to murder, leaving 21 defendants on trial for murder before an all-white, all-male jury of 12. The trial drew significant national and international press attention, including coverage by Rebecca West for The New Yorker and by Life Magazine. Defense attorneys John Bolt Culbertson and Thomas A. Wofford represented the defendants; Culbertson told the courtroom "Willie Earle is dead and I wish more like him was dead," while Wofford criticized law enforcement's handling of the case. The defense called no witnesses. After deliberating five hours and 13 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all counts on May 21, 1947.
The New York Times editorialized on May 23, 1947, that despite the acquittals, "a precedent has been set" regarding public scrutiny of lynching. In 1950, NAACP lawyers, citing an 1895 provision of the South Carolina constitution assigning financial responsibility for lynchings, won a $3,000 settlement from Greenville County on behalf of Earle's family. That same year, state representative Fritz Hollings wrote an anti-lynching bill, signed into law, making lynching punishable by death. No further lynchings were recorded in South Carolina afterward.
Greenville cab driver Thomas Watson Brown is robbed and stabbed to death in Pickens County, South Carolina.
Willie Earle is arrested at his mother's house and taken to the county jail; that evening a mob of taxi drivers forces the jailer to release Earle, then beats, stabs, and shoots him to death.
Trial opens in Greenville County Courthouse before Judge J. Robert Martin; charges against three defendants are dismissed and seven others are reduced to accessory charges, leaving 21 on trial for murder.
After deliberating five hours and 13 minutes, the jury acquits all defendants of all charges.
The New York Times publishes an editorial on the verdict and its implications for future lynching prosecutions.
NAACP lawyers win a $3,000 settlement from Greenville County on behalf of Earle's family under an 1895 state constitutional provision; South Carolina enacts an anti-lynching law making lynching punishable by death.
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Greenville cab driver robbed and stabbed to death on February 15, 1947; Earle was charged in connection with his death.[3]
24-year-old Black man taken from jail and killed by a mob on February 16, 1947.[3]
Named by fellow defendants' signed confessions as the leader of the taxi-driver mob that abducted Willie Earle from jail on 16 February 1947 and as the man who killed him with a shotgun; charged with murder along with 30 others (26 of whom gave statements admitting participation). Despite the confessions, an all-white jury in Greenville County acquitted all defendants, including Hurd, of all charges on 21 May 1947 after about five hours of deliberation, and the judge ordered them released. He was never convicted.[3]
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SOLVEDListenSouth Carolina, United States · 1880s
In December 1887, a South Carolina mob lynched Manse Waldrop, a white man accused of raping and murdering 14-year-old Lula Sherman, a Black girl. Three Black men convicted of the lynching were sentenced to death but ultimately pardoned in 1889 amid widespread petitions and the trial judge's own appeal for clemency.
SOLVEDListenTownville Elementary School, Townville, South Carolina · 2010s
A 14-year-old gunman fatally shot his father, then opened fire at Townville Elementary School in South Carolina, wounding three students and a teacher; six-year-old Jacob Hall died three days later from his injuries.
Credit: PCN02WPSCC BY-SA 4.0SourceUNSOLVEDListenClinton, South Carolina, United States · 1920s
Norris Dendy, an African-American father of five, was taken from his jail cell in Clinton, South Carolina, by a mob of white men on the night of July 4–5, 1933, and beaten and hanged after a physical altercation with a white truck driver. Five men were later indicted but a grand jury declined to charge anyone.
Image recordPublic domainSourceCOLDListenNear Moore's Ford Bridge, between Monroe and Watkinsville, Walton/Oconee County · 1946
On July 25, 1946, a mob of 15–20 unmasked white men shot and killed two young African-American couples — George and Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom — on a rural road near Moore's Ford Bridge in Walton County, Georgia. Despite FBI, state, and grand jury investigations spanning decades, no one was ever charged or convicted, and the case remains officially closed as unsolved.
Credit: Missouri Department of CorrectionsCC0SourceUNSOLVEDListenSikeston, Missouri, United States · 1942
Cleo Wright, a 26-year-old Black cotton mill worker, was shot by police, denied adequate medical care, and then dragged from a Sikeston, Missouri jail cell by a white mob and burned alive on January 25, 1942, sparking the first federal civil rights investigation into a lynching.
UNSOLVEDListenLaGrange, Troup County, Georgia, USA · 1940
Austin Callaway, a young African-American man held in the LaGrange, Georgia city jail as a suspect, was abducted by six armed white men on September 8, 1940, driven out of town, and shot multiple times; he died of his wounds the next day without ever facing trial.
