On August 1, EJI and a coalition of community members, local leaders, and public officials in Greenwood County, South Carolina, dedicated historical markers commemorating Robert Davis, who was lynched on August 16, 1906, near Greenwood, and Bennie Thompson, who was lynched on October 8, 1933 in Ninety Six, a town about nine miles northeast of Greenwood.
About 70 people, from toddlers to elders, attended the dedication at the GLEAMNS Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historic Preservation Site on Dr. Benjamin Mays birthday.
Dr. Anika Thomas, CEO of GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission, welcomed the participants and spoke about the importance of reflecting, recognizing, and preserving our history with honesty, integrity, and respect.
The director of the Mays Site, the Rev. Christopher B. Thomas, served as MC of the program and shared background about the historical preservation site and future plans to build a pathway that leads to historical markers documenting all lynchings that occurred in Greenwood.
He also presented $1,000 college scholarships to five local students who interned at the site and, along with 100 other students, visited EJI’s Legacy Sites in Montgomery. Two students spoke movingly about their experiences visiting Alabama and reflected on the impact of learning about the history of racial terror lynchings in Greenwood County.
EJI Senior Project Manager Jennifer Harris commended the Greenwood coalition for its “extraordinary work” of “acknowledging and taking the steps to honor these people who were victims of racial injustice.”
EJI partners with dozens of communities around the country on Community Remembrance Projects that are planned and implemented by local coalitions organized to take on the “challenging work of truth telling about our history,” Ms. Harris said.
The two historical markers were unveiled while the text on both sides of each marker was read aloud. The Rev. Doug Kauffman of Connie Maxwell Baptist Church led a Prayer of Dedication, and the ceremony closed with a musical selection and Benediction by the Rev. Annette Edwards, Greenwood City Councilwoman and Pastor of Weston Chapel AME Church.
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Community members gather in front of the newly dedicated historical markers in Greenwood County.
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EJI Senior Project Manager Jennifer Harris commended the coalition’s commitment to truth telling about our history.
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The Greenwood Community Remembrance Project dedicated a historical marker to victims of the Phoenix Riot in 2023, marking the 125th anniversary of the massacre.
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Robert Davis was lynched on August 16, 1906, in Greenwood County.
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A second marker memorializes Bennie Thompson, who was lynched in Greenwood County on October 8, 1933.
The Greenwood Community Remembrance Project
Created in 2019, Greenwood’s Community Remembrance Project has worked to educate the community about the history of slavery, Reconstruction, racial terrorism, and the legacy of that history.
In 2023, the group dedicated a historical marker to the victims of the Phoenix Riot, a massacre of nine racial terror lynching victims that occurred on Election Day near Greenwood, on the 125th anniversary of the massacre. Additional markers are planned for the Mays Site.
The coalition also sponsors a youth study program that brings students to EJI’s Legacy Sites in Montgomery to learn more about the history of racial injustice and its legacy.
Lynchings in Greenwood County
Greenwood County has the highest number of documented racial terror lynchings in South Carolina. Robert Davis and Bennie Thompson were two of at least 17 documented victims of racial terror lynching killed in Greenwood County between 1865 and 1950.
On the evening of August 16, 1906, a group of white men lynched Robert Davis, a Black man, near Greenwood. Mr. Davis was lynched after he was accused of sexual impropriety against the daughter of a prominent white farmer earlier that week. In response, hundreds of white residents formed a mob and launched a 48-hour manhunt to find him.
During this era, suspicion was often directed at Black men after a crime was reported, especially if the report involved the alleged victimization of a white woman. Many people across the United States harbored deep-seated racial hostilities and mythologies of Black criminality that burdened Black people with a presumption of guilt and dangerousness. Merely being targeted for suspicion was sufficient for many white people to presume that a Black person was guilty.
Though Mr. Davis professed his innocence, he was never afforded his constitutional right to a trial. Instead, he was seized by the mob in a local swamp, taken to the farmer’s house, and hanged from a nearby pine tree. He was then shot hundreds of times in front of 500 or more white people, who left his body hanging from the tree overnight.
Local newspapers justified the lynching by labeling Mr. Davis a “fiend,” “brute,” and “devil,” while lauding the perpetrators as “patriots” and refusing to condemn the mob’s actions. No one was ever held responsible for lynching Robert Davis.
On the evening of October 8, 1933, a mob of white men lynched a Black man named Bennie Thompson in the town of Ninety Six. Mr. Thompson, a farmer in his late 30s, was married with three children.
A member of the mob claimed that on the night of the lynching, Mr. Thompson was involved in an altercation with four white men outside of Woods’s Cafe in Ninety Six. Police arrested Mr. Thompson but initially chose not to arrest the white men. When a mob soon formed to seize Mr. Thompson from the city jail, the police chief spoke with its members and promised to leave the jail unlocked if they returned later.
The mob returned that night, entered the unlocked jail, beat Mr. Thompson in his cell, then abducted and dragged him into a car. After driving a mile and a half, four white men took turns bludgeoning Mr. Thompson with an automobile pump tube, then left him on the road to die.
The next morning, Mr. Thompson was found dead with severe bruising throughout his body. Following a coroner’s inquest, all four members of the mob were arrested and charged with murder. A grand jury returned an indictment against the four men on January 1, 1934. However, at trial, the judge acquitted three, and an all-white jury deliberated for 10 minutes before acquitting the fourth perpetrator. No one was ever held accountable for lynching Bennie Thompson.
Lynching in America
Over 6,500 Black men, women, and children were killed in racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1865 and 1950. After the Civil War, many white people in the South opposed equal rights for Black people, and lynching emerged as the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism used to enforce racial hierarchy.
Almost 25% of documented lynchings were sparked by charges of inappropriate behavior between a Black man and a white woman that was often characterized as “assault” at a time when the mere accusation of sexual impropriety regularly fueled fatal mob violence.
In this era, it was common for lynch mobs to seize their victims from jails, prisons, courtrooms, or out of police hands. Though they were armed and charged with protecting the men and women in custody, police almost never used force to resist white lynch mobs intent on killing Black people. In some cases, police officials were even found to be complicit or active participants in lynchings.
The lynching of African Americans was terrorism, a widely supported campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation.
Lynch mobs would often enact extreme violence to destroy the body of a victim, then allow the victim to hang for hours, preventing the family from claiming their loved one, in an attempt to maintain the racial order through the threat of violence to the entire Black community.
Although many victims were never documented and remain unknown, Robert Davis and Bennie Thompson were among more than 240 victims killed in South Carolina.
Community Remembrance Project
The Community Remembrance Project is part of our campaign to recognize the victims of lynching by collecting soil from lynching sites, erecting historical markers, and developing the Legacy Sites in Montgomery.
EJI believes that by reckoning with the truth of racial violence, communities can begin a necessary conversation that advances healing and reconciliation.