Cleveland Williams
Cleveland Williams, a Black man, was one of six men held in the Hemphill jail in Sabine County, Texas. According to The Waxahachie Daily Light, an armed crowd of about 150 men came to the jail around midnight on June 21, 1908, overpowered the sheriff after he refused to give up his keys, and took the six men out. The paper reported that five were hanged from a limb of a nearby tree and one was shot as he ran, without saying which man was shot. An Associated Press dispatch in The Pensacola Journal gave the date as June 22 and described the men as hanged by a mob.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. An Associated Press dispatch says a mob took six men from the Hemphill jail and hanged them from a tree.
Reported by: Associated Press dispatch (reporters); newspaper article on the Hemphill jail lynching (reporters).