Pathways: Retracing Their Steps, Recovering Their History

In January and February of 1871, white supremacists lynched numerous members of a black state militia unit (similar to today’s National Guard) in Union, South Carolina. The locations of these events are sacred places, since they bore witness to the suffering and courage of the victims. This virtual journey to sites associated with the lynchings is part of efforts by the Union County Community Remembrance Project and the Equal Justice Initiative to honor the victims and restore memory to the present.

On New Years Eve, 1870, an African American state militia unit on patrol duty clashed with a white man named Mat Stevens, just north of the town of Union. Stevens was killed during the ensuing struggle, and the next day local whites rounded up a number of militiamen and jailed them to await trial. But on the night of January 4th, 1871, disguised men broke into the jail, lynched two of the militiamen, and wounded several others. Then on the 12th of February, a larger party of disguised men returned to the jail and lynched another group of prisoners at the nearby “hanging grounds.” The men lost their lives because they contested white political, social, and ecomonic power during the tumultous days of Reconstruction following the Civil War.

Today, we remember the men who died, a group which included important community leaders: Captain J. Alexander Walker, Charner Gordon (aka Herndon), Sylvanus Wright, Andrew Thompson (or Thomas), Joseph Vanlue, Aaron Thompson (aka Aaron Easters/Estes), Barrett Edwards (aka Burt Woodson), Thomas Byers (aka Thomas Green), William Fincher, and Ellison Scott. We also remember Mac Bobo and Amos McKissick, who were abducted from the jail alongside these men and somehow escaped. Mac Bobo was later lynched near Pinckneyville, and Amos McKissick may have suffered a similar fate.

Two other militia men, Henry Cannon and Taylor Palmer, were arrested later. They were eventually tried and executed for the murder of Mat Stevens.

This virtual experience allows you to travel to the places where the events occurred. Members of the Union County Community Remembrance Project will tell the stories of the men who lost their lives in 1871 through videos connected to the map. If you visit the sites in person, please be respectful of these places and be mindful that some of them are private property. If you are deaf or hard of hearing and want to read the video scripts, you can access it  here .

In this first video, below, Timika M. Wilson, Co-Lead of the Union County Community Remembrance Project, introduces this virtual exploration.

Conclusion

In this video, Kate Borchard Schoen, Co-lead for the UCCRP, concludes this pathways exploration.

For further reading:

Baker, Bruce E. This Mob Will Surely Take My Life: Lynchings in the Carolinas, 1871-1947. London: Continuum, 2008.

Charles, Allan D. The Narrative History of Union County. Union County Historical Society, 1987.

Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Projects:  https://eji.org/projects/community-remembrance-project/ 

Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Ku Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction. The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

U. S. Congress.  Testimony Taken by the by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: South Carolina, Vol. II.  Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872.

Williams, Kidada E. They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I. New York University Press, 2012.