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Dark Days In The Ohio Valley: Three Western Kentucky Lynchings, 1884-1911, Woodrow Wilson Maglinger, Iii

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis investigates three lynchings of African Americans in Progressive-Era western Kentucky. The first occurred in Owensboro. In July 1884, a masked mob at-tacked the Daviess County jail. Richard May, an African-American field hand, had been incarcerated for the alleged sexual assault of a local farmer’s daughter. During the lynch mob’s actions that claimed May’s life, the white county jailer was killed protecting his prisoner. Ironically, just two decades earlier Jailer William Lucas had fought for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

In nearby Hawesville in September 1897, Raymond Bushrod was also arrested on suspicion of raping …