Enraged White Mob Decides One Black Person Is The Same As Another When They Want To Murder

Plaque Memorializing Callie Crutchfield at 
the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama

Smith County, TN March 15, 1901 — A bloodthirsty mob forced their way into the home of Squire Albert Bains to take a young Black man into their custody. William Crutchfield had been taken to Bains's home by Sheriff William T. Oliver. Bains was the largest landowner in the county. The newspapers of the time have no explanation for why Wilson took Crutchfield there rather than his jail.

William Crutchfield had been arrested the day earlier for theft, having possession of a wallet owned by one Albert Sampson a week earlier. It was reported in the Nashville Banner that a Negro boy had found the wallet and was taking it to authorities when Crutchfield stopped the boy and took it from him. Sampson had pressed charges because he stated he had 120 dollars missing from the wallet. 

The mob apparently thought that an unproven theft was reason enough to murder someone and pulled Crutchfield from the house and drug him off. The young Black man fought fiercely with the mob and escaped into the woods. After a short search, the mob gave up and redirected their anger toward Crutchfield’s sister Callie.

The mob decided that the brother and sister must have conspired to steal the money from Sampson. No warrant for arrest was issued, and Sampson had not pressed charges against Callie Crutchfield but once a mob had their rage up, it didn’t matter.

The mob forced their way into yet another home, this time belonging to William Vanderpool where Callie Crutchfield had been living. They kidnapped the young woman and bound her arms and took her to the nearby bridge over Round Lick Creek. There they shot her in the head and dumped the body into the creek.

As was consistent with Jim Crow laws and culture the newspapers reported the murder as the culmination of suspicion and just vengeance by a mob implementing swift and terrible justice without a trial against someone who had not been accused of a crime until kidnapped by the mob. The coroner concluded that the death was at the hands of people unknown, which was the most common verdict in such deaths.