Editing Harris County, Georgia (section)

===Lynchings===
On January 22, 1912, a black woman and three black men were [[Lynching in the United States|lynched]] in [[Hamilton, Georgia|Hamilton]], the county seat, for the alleged murder of young local white landowner Norman Hadley. He was described by journalist Karen Branan in her 2016 book about these events as a white, "near penniless plowboy-playboy"<ref name="ajc">[http://www.myajc.com/news/entertainment/books-literature/family-tree-unpacks-mystery-of-a-1912-georgia-lync/npzxC/ Jeff Calder, " 'Family Tree’ unpacks mystery of a 1912 Georgia lynching"], ''Books & Literature'', ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'', January 9, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016.</ref> and "notorious predator of black women."<ref>[http://comingtothetable.org/stories/stories-facing-history/roots-family-tree/ Karen Branan, "Getting to the Roots of My Family Tree"], Coming to the Table, 2014, accessed April 6, 2016.</ref>

Of this group, Dusky Crutchfield was the first woman lynched in Georgia.<ref name="ajc"/> The lynching case attracted attention of national northern newspapers.<ref>[http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1912/01/23/page/1/article/woman-and-3-men-lynched-by-mob "Woman and 3 Men Lynched by Mob"], ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', January 23, 1912, accessed April 6, 2016.</ref><ref>[http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/580911 (Associated Press), "Three Colored Men and Woman Lynched"], ''VALLEY SENTINEL'' ([[Carlisle, Pennsylvania]]), January 26, 1912, accessed April 6, 2016.</ref> Also murdered by the lynch mob were Eugene Harrington, Burrell Hardaway,<ref name="lynchings">[https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/galynchings/lynchings/ "Burrell Hardaway"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417024900/https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/galynchings/lynchings/ |date=April 17, 2016 }}, Georgia Lynching Project Circa 1875-1930, Project of Emory University, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016.</ref> and Johnie Moore. (Note: There was confusion about the names of victims at the time, and variations in spelling have been published.)<ref name="branan"/>

The four had been taken in for questioning about Hadley's murder by Sheriff Marion Madison "Buddie" Hadley, but never arrested. Lynched as scapegoats by a white mob of 100 men, they were later shown to have been utterly innocent. As an example of the complex relationships in the town and county, Johnie Moore was a [[mixed-race]] cousin of the sheriff; and Norman Hadley was the sheriff's nephew.<ref name="ajc"/><ref name="branan">Karen Branan, ''The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth'', Atria Books, 2016.</ref><ref name="lynchings"/>

In 1947, prosperous farmer Henry "Peg" Gilbert, a married African-American man who owned and farmed 100 acres in [[Troup County, Georgia|Troup County]], was arrested by officials from neighboring Harris County and charged with harboring a fugitive. The 47-year-old father was accused in the case of Gus Davidson, an African-American man accused of fatally shooting a white man in Harris County and who had disappeared. Four days later Gilbert was dead, shot while held in jail by the Harris County Sheriff, who said it was self-defense. No charges were filed against him.

In 2016 the [[Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project]] of [[Northeastern University]] reported on Gilbert's [[death in custody]]. They had found that Henry Gilbert had been beaten severely before his death, and shot five times. They asserted he had been detained and killed because whites resented his success as a farmer.<ref name="CRRJ_Georgia_1947">{{citation |title=CRRJ Provides First Full Account of Notorious 1947 Georgia Jailhouse Killing |url=http://www.northeastern.edu/law/news/announcements/2016/crrj-gilbert-8.22.html |publisher=Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project |date=August 22, 2016 |access-date=August 25, 2016}}</ref><ref name="CRRJ_report_2016_Gilbert">{{cite report |url=http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/georgia/henry-gilbert/#_ga=1.96031967.2139854245.1472158027 |title=Henry Gilbert |first1=Tara |last1=Dunn |first2=Ariel Goeun Lee |last2=Kong |publisher=Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project |date=2016 |access-date=August 25, 2016 |work=Northeastern University School of Law |location=Boston, MA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826013429/http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/georgia/henry-gilbert/#_ga=1.96031967.2139854245.1472158027 |archive-date=August 26, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Economic issues and competition were often at the bottom of lynchings. A white man took over Gilbert's land, cheating his family out of everything he had built.