Editing Okemah, Oklahoma (section)

===Lynching===
{{main|Lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson}}
Although a police force was organized in the town soon after its founding (a Mr. Franklin wore the first city policeman's badge), [[vigilante]]s were active during Okemah's early years. Law enforcement and justices of the peace were located some distance away. The vigilantes appeared to have had almost complete freedom of action.

In 1911, a black woman, 35-year-old Laura Nelson, and her teenage son, L. D., were [[lynched]] by a mob of white men. Accused of killing a police officer in an altercation at their home near [[Paden, Oklahoma|Paden]], they were kidnapped from the Okfuskee county jail and hanged from a [[suspension bridge]] over the [[North Canadian River]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davidson|first1=James West|title="They say": Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race|date=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=HiazQsueqM0C&pg=PA5 5–8]}}</ref>