In the summer of 1860, three enslaved Black men were falsely accused of arson in Dallas, lynched by a white mob, and followed by an order that every enslaved Black person be whipped as a warning; one month later, Texas seceded from the Union. After the Civil War, resistance to equal rights for Black people and an ideology of white supremacy fueled fatal violence against Black women, men, and children, and between 1865 and 1950 thousands of African Americans were victims of mob violence and lynching across the United States. Lynching became the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism, with white mobs acting with impunity, white press coverage often defending the killings, and perpetrators rarely arrested or prosecuted. In Texas, more than 338 racial terror lynchings of Black people have been documented, including 7 in Dallas County. On March 3, 1910, Allen Brooks, a 59-year-old Black handyman, was lynched by a white mob at the intersection of Main and Akard Streets after being accused without evidence of assaulting his white employer's daughter. During a pre-trial hearing at the Dallas County Courthouse, a mob of at least 3,000 white men gathered, broke into the courtroom, seized Brooks from law enforcement officers, tied a rope around his neck, threw him from a second-floor window, and fractured his skull when he hit the ground. Another group kicked and beat him, dragged him several blocks, and hanged him from a telegraph pole near the Elks Arch before 5,000 onlookers. Photographs of his body were widely circulated, attendees took pieces of his clothing as souvenirs, and although several mob members gave newspaper interviews, no one was ever held responsible.

Photo: Brandon D Cross

Photo: Jeff Leichsenring

Photo: Jeff Leichsenring

Photo: Jeff Leichsenring

Photo: Jeff Leichsenring