On June 3, 1893, a mob of 1,500 white people lynched Samuel J. Bush, a 30-year-old Black man, across from the courthouse lawn in Decatur, Illinois. Bush was accused of assaulting two white women, one from Mt. Zion, a sundown town, and was charged and held at the Macon County Courthouse. Before he had a chance to defend himself in a court of law, a mob from Mt. Zion stormed the courthouse and abducted him. Bush proclaimed, “Gentlemen, you are killing an innocent man.” The mob dragged him to the intersection of Water & Wood St., where, according to newspapers, he knelt to pray, calling on “Jesus to come and take his soul and forgive the men who were murdering him.” The mob forced the naked Bush on top of a carriage and hanged him from a utility pole. Afterward, pieces of the rope used to hang him were distributed to the crowd as souvenirs, and his body was displayed in a glass window for masses of people who came to view his corpse. None of the perpetrators faced any legal consequences for his murder. His killing occurred during a time when assault charges against Black people, even when supported by unsubstantiated evidence, regularly aroused violent white mobs.