On November 14, 1920, a large white mob lynched Dave Hurst, a 25-year-old Black coal miner, after authorities had arrested him two days earlier following a white woman's report that she had been assaulted by a Black man. In the early morning hours, the mob broke into the Wise County Jail, kidnapped Hurst, drove him to a bridge about two miles near here, hanged him with a log chain, shot his body repeatedly, and dragged his remains by car to Blackwood. Although two white men were tried and convicted for participating, the governor of Virginia pardoned them in 1923, and none of the other dozens to hundreds involved faced legal repercussions. Hurst's killing took place within the broader era of racial terror lynching in America, when deep racial hostility, white supremacy, and resistance to equal rights led to thousands of African Americans being murdered by mobs between 1865 and 1950, often after unsupported accusations, including more than 84 documented lynchings in Virginia and at least three victims in Wise County.