Before the Civil War, millions of African people were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas under horrific conditions that frequently resulted in starvation and death. Over two centuries, the enslavement of Black people in the United States created wealth, opportunity, and prosperity for millions of white people in all regions of the country while traumatizing and devastating enslaved Black people who were denied any legal rights or autonomy. By 1860, enslaved people were 25% of the state population in Arkansas. When chattel slavery ended in 1865, racial terror and lynching emerged as a lawless and tragic form of violence against Black people used to maintain racial hierarchy. Black people accused of violating social customs, seeking economic and political autonomy, or committing alleged crimes, even when there was no evidence tying the accused to the offense, were often victims of racial terror lynchings. More than 6,000 Black people were killed by racial terror lynchings in the United States between 1865 and 1950, and millions of Black Americans were victimized by this violence, many of whom fled to the urban North and West of the United States. Some 500 lynchings of Black people by white mobs have been documented in the state of Arkansas. On July 7, 1856, a white mob from present-day Elkins, AR kidnapped and lynched Anthony, a Black man, and Aaron, a Black teenager, after they had been tried at the Washington County Courthouse in the death of James Boone, a white man who enslaved them. Anthony was proven innocent, and Aaron was released due to lack of evidence, but disregarding the rule of law, a mob led by Boone's sons lynched them near the jail, most likely on the estate of Archibald Yell, the deceased former governor of Arkansas. Randall, a third accused enslaved person whom an all-white jury found guilty, contested his verdict but was refused a retrial. Like lynchings, court-ordered executions with mobs standing by did not require reliable findings of guilt. Randall was hanged by the state on Aug. 1, 1856, likely on Gallows Hill, which is now within the Fayetteville National Cemetery next to Oaks Cemetery. During this era, when enslaved Black people commonly faced violence by white enslavers, local oral history contends that on May 29, 1856, James Boone attempted to sexually assault an enslaved Black woman who fatally assaulted him in self-defense. The Boone family then implicated Aaron, Anthony, and Randall in Boone's death. Slavery in Washington County, as elsewhere, devalued the lives of Black people, resulting in violence, including sexual assaults and lynchings, for which hundreds of white perpetrators were never held accountable.