After emancipation in 1865 and especially after federal officials ended Reconstruction in 1877 and returned political control of the South to Confederate veterans, white people used lynching and other forms of racial terror to maintain white supremacy and intimidate Black communities. Between 1877 and 1950, white mobs lynched at least 4,400 Black people, and at least 189 racial terror lynchings have been documented in South Carolina, including at least 19 in Union County between 1865 and 1950. Lynchings included hanging, shooting, burning, torture, and mutilation, sometimes before crowds of thousands, while law enforcement often failed to protect Black people and white mobs regularly seized victims from jails, prisons, and courtrooms. In Union County after 1877, a white mob lynched Andrew McKnight in a Black church cemetery near Kelton on June 26, 1889, after he was accused of making inappropriate comments toward white women; in January 1900, Rufus Salter, a young prosperous Black farmer accused of arson, was lynched at his home near West Springs, and weeks later a governor’s proclamation implied he was innocent; in June 1906, Mose Hughes was lynched and his bound body was thrown into the Tyger River near Delta; and in 1930, law enforcement failed to prevent the lynching of Dan Jenkins, a 23-year-old Black man whose body was riddled with 500 bullets on Santuc Road after a white woman accused him of assault despite no investigation or fair trial. Public officials, media, and the legal system allowed white people to kill with impunity, creating an atmosphere of terror, while Black leaders such as Rev. A.A. Sims and Dr. L.W. Long organized resistance by establishing a Black high school, a Black community hospital, and Black businesses, and churches became and remain a cornerstone of Black resilience.