Charles Caldwell, a Republican leader during Reconstruction and a former slave, was assassinated outside Clinton's Store on the northeast corner of Leake and Jefferson Streets on December 30, 1875. Caldwell had been a delegate to the 1868 State Constitutional Convention and was elected to the state Senate in 1870. He organized the political rally that led to the Clinton Riot. A target of vigilantes, he was lured to the cellar of Clinton's store and killed in an ambush.