Henry Phillips
Henry Phillips, a Black man, was held in the Osceola jail in Mississippi County, Arkansas, in November 1897. According to The Forrest City Times, a mob of about 100 men took him from the jail, forced the sheriff at gunpoint to surrender the keys, and hanged him from a tree in the public square shortly after midnight. Before he was returned to the sheriff, Phillips bade farewell to his child, and a citizen asked the mob to spare a second man held with him. Other papers gave the place of the hanging as the courthouse yard and said the mob dispersed quietly, and some reports date the lynching to November 13 while others do not give a date.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob of about 100 men took Henry Phillips from the Osceola jail, where the sheriff surrendered the keys at gunpoint, and hanged him from a tree in the public square.
Reported by: Arkansas newspaper accounts of the lynching (reporters); Editor of the Osceola Times, as reported in The Democrat (Little Rock).