Editing Mayfield, Kentucky (section)

===20th century===
In 1907, Fulton County judge Herbert Carr recalled that the Mayfield Convention adopted a resolution for [[secession]]. An historical marker in front of the Graves County courthouse now proclaims this as fact. However, records of the meeting kept by a [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] sympathizer do not mention any such resolution. Historian Berry Craig argues that the convention believed Kentucky would eventually secede and a resolution to break away was unnecessary. Surviving records do show that the convention adopted resolutions condemning [[President of the United States|President]] [[Abraham Lincoln]] for "waging a bloody and cruel war" against the South, urging [[Governor of Kentucky|Gov.]] [[Beriah Magoffin]] to resist Union forces, and praising him for refusing to answer Lincoln's demand for soldiers. They also condemned the Federal government for providing "Lincoln guns" to Union sympathizers in eastern Kentucky. The convention nominated [[Henry Cornelius Burnett|Henry Burnett]] to represent [[Kentucky's 1st congressional district|Kentucky's First District]] in [[United States Congress|Congress]]. The Mayfield Convention was followed by the [[Russellville, Kentucky|Russellville]] Convention, which created the provisional [[Confederate government of Kentucky]].<ref>Craig, pp. 339, 346–347, 352–353, 359–360</ref>

During and after Reconstruction, there was considerable white violence against blacks in the county. In one week in late December 1896, four black men were lynched in Mayfield. After Jim Stone was lynched, whites became fearful after hearing that blacks were arming to retaliate. They called for reinforcements from Fulton County, and fatally shot Will Suett, a young innocent black man getting off the train. The large white mob killed two more African-American men before the violence ended. Whites also burned four houses of African Americans.<ref name="kyDb">[https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/1558 "Race War in Mayfield, KY"], NKAA: Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, 2003-2018, University of Kentucky Libraries; accessed 25 March 2018</ref>

During the [[Civil Rights Movement]] of the 1950s and 1960s, the local schools were slow to integrate, but they finally did so without violence. The "[[Mayfield Ten]]", ten black students from the segregated Dunbar High School, were allowed to register in 1956 at all-white Mayfield High School.