Two black men, Roosevelt Townes and Robert McDaniels, were lynched by a white mob on April 13, 1937. They mob was convinced the two men were responsible for the shooting murder of a white storekeeper in Duck Hill, Mississippi.
The police used bloodhounds to track the scent from the scene of the crime and ended up at the house of two black brothers, setting the stage for a black man to be charged with the crime. Eventually, that man became Roosevelt Townes. When officers showed up to question Townes in January he ran and was eventually captured in Memphis in early April and returned to Mississippi.
Townes acquaintance Robert McDaniels was also charged for the murder at the same time as Townes. The two men stood before the judge on the morning of April 5 and when the court adjourned for lunch a mob of approximately 100 men kidnapped the two prisoners. They were driven to within one mile of the store where the murder took place and each chained to a tree.
The two men were tortured with a blow torch and confessed to every accusation. Townes begged for the mob to kill him. McDaniels was subjected to the same treatment but was also shot. Luckily for him, one of the shots went through his head and killed him. Townes, barely conscious, was incapacitated while the mob surrounded the tree with brush, doused him with gasoline, and lit him on fire.
The US House of Representatives were debating anti-lynching legislation at the same time these murders occurred. The legislation was never approved and in 2005 the Senate formally apologized for failing to recognize and take action against lynchings.
