Dec. 27, 1919, no Black person was secure from the White Mob
once they had decided to kill someone. Even veterans were immediately suspected
in crimes against whites. On this evening a WWI veteran named Powell Green got
into an altercation with a theater owner, R.M. Brown, in Franklinton, North
Carolina. There is no reason given for this in any of the newspaper accounts. What is known is that Powell and Brown were
arguing in the street when police arrived and when they attempted to take
Powell into custody, he shot Brown. At this time the police chief loaded Powell
in his car and per instructions from the sheriff attempted to take him to jail
in Raleigh. However, his car was stopped by a roadblock just outside of town.
The mob pulled Green out from the car and wrapped him in ropes and drug him
behind a car for a half mile, not satisfied they shot him to death and then
hung him from a tree.
There was a large outcry regarding the lynching and defiance
of law & order from the governor’s office and an immediate coroner’s jury no
one was ever cited or charged with being part of the mob and no one was charged
in Powell’s brutal death, which was the 2nd in five months in
Franklin County.
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