In the Jim Crow period of the South Lynching was so common and so condoned by authorities and others in the dominant white society that often reports were bareboned and lacking in details as to when, why or how an African American was murdered by the mob.
Such was the case on August 5, 1907, when a Black man named Thomas Hall was killed by a mob. News reports appeared all over the country and were all identical from Houston to Honolulu to New York City.
The story was that Hall was in jail after being arrested for attempted assault on two young White girls. The story didn’t say when, who, or even where. What they did report was that Hall attempted to assault the two girls and said lewd things to them. Then the story reported he had been arrested at 9:00 p.m. then was found dead hanging from a tree near the jail two hours later.
The story made no mention of how he was taken from the jail, or if there were attempts to settle the mob. All that is reported is that Hall’s body was found and the order was returned to the town of Runge in Texas.
What was unexplained is how Hall was taken from jail or if law enforcement was a causal supporter of the mob. No details about Hall’s life are given or if there had been a court date or if there was going to be an inquest into the young man’s death.
What is stated is that any black person questioning the lynching, the failure of law enforcement to protect Hall was asked to leave town and not return. So both the hanging of a man and the creation of a “Sundown Town” in Runge went unquestioned by anyone working for a newspaper and was just another fact of life in the segregated South.
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