Editing Dyersburg, Tennessee (section)

==== Lynching and Mob Violence ====

===== William Thomas =====
A black man named William Thomas was [[lynching|lynched]] on March 19, 1917, for allegedly shooting an [[Police officer|officer]].<ref name="crisis-thomas" />

===== Lation Scott =====
On December 2, 1917, a 24-year-old black farmhand named [[Lation Scott|Lation (or Ligon) Scott]]<ref name="executed" /> was brutally [[lynching|lynched]] by a white mob<ref name="miami" /> before a crowd of eight thousand<ref name="afro-american" /> people.<ref name="crisis-scott" /> Over the course of several hours, Scott was publicly tortured. He was chained to a post in an empty lot adjacent to the town's court square.<ref name="blackripley" /> Torturers burned out his eyes with red-hot irons.<ref name="crisis-scott" /> When he cried out in pain, a red-hot poker was rammed down his esophagus.<ref name="crisis-scott" /> He was then [[Castration|castrated]], and more hot irons placed on his feet, back, and body until "a hideous stench of burning flesh filled the Sabbath air".<ref name="crisis-scott" /> After being tortured, Scott was slowly [[Death by burning|burned at the stake]].<ref name="miami" /><ref name="crisis-scott" /> Scott's torture and murder occurred over a three and a half hour period.<ref name="crisis-scott" /> No one was prosecuted for the lynching.<ref name="executed" /> Author Margaret Vandiver wrote in ''Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South'', “The lynching of Lation Scott was the most ghastly of all those I researched.”<ref name="executed" /> [[H. L. Mitchell]], future president of the [[Southern Tenant Farmers Union]], wrote of the lynching, "The flames rose high, and the odor of burning flesh permeated the air. The black man's body sagged against the iron post and chains. Nauseated, I broke through the crowd and rushed back to the railway station where I stretched out trembling, on the cold ground."<ref name="mitchell" /> The lynching was widely reported on at the time, with Baltimore newspaper [[Baltimore Afro-American|''The Afro-American'']] running the headline "TENNESSEE LYNCHING OUTRIVALS WORST GERMAN ATROCITIES"<ref name="afro-american" /> and coverage in ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref name="nyt-scott" />
There were no more documented lynchings in Dyersburg after Scott's.<ref name="Vandiver" />

[[File:Edward Moody King House.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Edward Moody King House]] is on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].]]