Editing Pittsboro, North Carolina (section)

=== Slavery and racial segregation ===
The area did not have large plantations, but farmers also depended on slave labor. In 1860 nearly one-third of the county population was made up of enslaved African Americans. After the Civil War and [[emancipation]], whites used violence and other means to enforce [[white supremacy]] and suppress the freedmen's vote. The [[Ku Klux Klan]] and other supremacist groups were active in the county.<ref name="huber" />

Pittsboro was the scene of a notorious mass [[Lynching in the United States|lynching of four African Americans]] in 1885, including a woman. The event earned statewide condemnation. Those lynched were tenant farmers. A masked mob took Jerry Finch, his wife Harriet, and Lee Tyson from jail, where they were being held after arrest as suspects in a robbery/murder case.<ref name="huber">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/23522619 Patrick J. Huber, "Caught Up in the Violent Whirlwind of Lynching": The 1885 Quadruple Lynching in Chatham County, North Carolina], ''The North Carolina Historical Review'', Vol. 75, No. 2 (April 1998), pp. 135–160</ref> Harriet Finch was one of four black women to be lynched in the state.<ref name="baker">[https://www.ncpedia.org/lynching Bruce E. Baker, "Lynching"], 2006, ''Encyclopedia of North Carolina'', ed. by William S. Powell; accessed June 9, 2018</ref> They also took and hanged John Pattishall, who was awaiting trial for two other unrelated robbery/murders.<ref name="burke">[https://uncw.edu/csurf/Explorations/documents/withoutdueprocess.pdf Sarah Burke, "Without Due Process: Lynching in North Carolina 1880–1900"], ''Explorations'', n.d., University of North Carolina Wilmington; accessed June 9, 2018</ref>

A white mob broke into the Pittsboro jail and seized a 16-year-old boy, [[Lynching of Eugene Daniel|Eugene Daniel]]. He was lynched and then had his body riddled with bullets on September 18, 1921.{{sfn|''Rockingham Post-Dispatch'', September 22,|1921|p=2}} {{sfn|''Hickory Daily Record'', September 19,|1921|p=2}}

Violence continued during the stress of economic hard times at the end of the century and into the early 20th century, when the state [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]]. This political exclusion lasted until after 1965 and passage of the [[Voting Rights Act]]. In 2019, a statue erected in 1907 of a Confederate soldier outside the [[Chatham County Courthouse]] in Pittsboro was taken down.<ref>[https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/chatham-county/article237568224.html Confederate monument at the center of protests in Chatham County taken down]</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Confederate Statue in North Carolina Comes Down After 112 Years (Published 2019) |work=The New York Times |date=November 20, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221013031123/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/us/pittsboro-confederate-statue.html |archive-date=October 13, 2022 |url-status=live |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/us/pittsboro-confederate-statue.html |last1=Taylor |first1=Derrick Bryson }}</ref>