Thousands of Black people were victims of racial terror lynching in the United States between 1877 and 1950, as white mobs used public, notorious violence to intimidate Black people and enforce racial hierarchy, often acting with impunity while law enforcement failed to protect Black communities. In Virginia, more than 84 racial terror lynchings have been documented, including at least two victims in Roanoke County. On September 21, 1893, a white mob lynched Thomas Smith, a young Black man, in Roanoke, Virginia, one day after he was accused of assaulting a white woman near the Roanoke City Market. He was arrested and placed in the city jail, where at least 4,000 white people gathered; although the Mayor of Roanoke summoned the local militia and officers temporarily removed Smith from the jail, they handed him over to the mob a few hours later instead of protecting him. The mob dragged him to the corner of Franklin Road and Mountain Avenue, hanged him from a hickory tree, riddled his body with bullets, took pieces of his clothing, the rope, and the tree as souvenirs, then burned his corpse on the bank of the Roanoke River before more than 4,000 cheering men, women, and children while his 15-year-old sister watched. In 1916, the NAACP reported that Roanoke officials knew Smith was innocent and had allowed the actual assailant to leave town on a promise never to return, and despite the many spectators and photographs, no one was ever held accountable.