Roby Baskins
Roby Baskins, a Black man, was held in the jail at Houston, Mississippi, in February 1909. Newspaper accounts report that a crowd of 500 or more people took him from the jail and hanged him from a mulberry tree, and that a deputy sheriff who objected was overpowered and his pistols taken. One account says a ruse was needed to get him out of the jail. His body hung until about 4 p.m. before it was cut down, and his mother came to the scene, asked for the body, and had it taken to her home. Accounts give the date as either February 9 or February 16, 1909.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A crowd of 300 to 500 people, white and Black, took Roby Baskins from the Houston, Mississippi jail and hanged him from a mulberry tree, according to newspaper accounts; a deputy sheriff who objected was overpowered and his pistols taken.
Reported by: news reports.