Anthony Crawford
Anthony Crawford, a Black man, was reported by the Savannah Tribune to own about $20,000 worth of farmland near Abbeville, South Carolina. Earlier on October 21, 1916, a crowd tried to whip him after a dispute with a white merchant, and a sheriff brought him to the Abbeville jail. According to the Tribune, a mob of an estimated 200 to 300 men entered the jail through the back, overpowered the jailer, took him from his cell and hanged him from a pine tree near the county fairgrounds, then shot his body, and the sheriff did not resist. Other accounts give the date as October 22, and the Associated Press reported that eight white men were bound over for a higher court on murder charges after a preliminary hearing.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob took Anthony Crawford from the Abbeville, South Carolina jail and lynched him in October 1916, and eight white men were bound over for murder in connection with it.
Reported by: Associated Press (reporters); newspaper report.
News reports (6)
- The Birmingham Age-Herald, October 22, 1916, page 1
- Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, October 22, 1916, page 5
- The Pensacola Journal, October 22, 1916, page 1
- Atlanta Semi-Weekly Journal, October 24, 1916, page 6
- The Savannah Tribune, October 28, 1916, page 1
- Atlanta Semi-Weekly Journal, December 8, 1916, page 8