Lynching of the Walker family

rdf:langString Lynching of the Walker family

rdf:langString The lynching of the Walker family took place near Hickman, Fulton County, Kentucky, on October 3, 1908, at the hands of about fifty masked Night Riders. David Walker was a landowner, with a 21.5-acre (8.7 ha) farm. The entire family of seven African Americans, parents, infant in arms, and four children, was reported killed, with the event carried by national newspapers. Governor Augustus E. Willson of Kentucky strongly condemned the murders and promised a reward for information leading to prosecution. No one was ever prosecuted. These murders took place in a period of civil disruption when white farmers in western Kentucky and Tennessee organized as Night Riders, threatening and attacking people after the West Tennessee Land Company took private control of the Reelfoot Lake. Local residents had long treated the lake as their own. They were also resisting the expansion into this area of the cotton economy, led by large-scale planters who hired many African Americans as sharecroppers. After two prominent white attorneys related to the land company were kidnapped and one murdered in Lake County, Tennessee governor Malcolm Rice Patterson directed an investigation and ordered in the state militia to suppress the violence. Six men were convicted and sentenced to death in that case. The state of Tennessee acquired the lake, preserving it for public use as a state park.