NWA’s racist story comes to life

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NORTHWEST ARKANSAS, (KNWA / KFTA) July 7 is the date you’ll see on a historic milestone in a cemetery in Fayetteville. It is dedicated to three men, lynched in Washington County.

In a special report, we hear about a local organization working to preserve this dark history and why it hopes it will inspire meaningful conversations about the breed in Northwest Arkansas.

Wendell Huggins is a warden at Oaks Cemetery in Fayetteville. The last historic home for many African Americans. In May, it also became the home of a commemorative marker.

If you don’t remember the past No matter how painful it is, you’re doomed to repeat the past,

Wendell huggins

A reminder from July 7, 1856. The day a black man Anthony and Aaron, a black teenager were kidnapped and lynched by a white mob. The mob lynched a third man Randall on August 1.

Randall was killed and hanged not so far from this location, the gallows was where the flag pole was in the national cemetery,

Wendell Huggins WEB EXTRA: Looking Back at Washington County in the 1800s and Beyond

They were accused of killing James Boone, a white slave owner.

They were three human beings, three young men who otherwise could have given the world much more than they could.

Sharon killian

Sharon Killian is part of the Washington County Community Remembrance Project, a diverse group of community members and local historians. One of the group members is a descendant of a relative of the Boone family.

Together, they worked to find out what really happened in 1856.

Killian says it took years of oral history research because most of the histories of blacks during this time were undocumented.

We had to find other ways to communicate and keep our stories and maintain our stories, and certainly, throughout slavery

Sharon killian

Ultimately, they learned that Anthony, Aaron, and Randall hadn’t killed James Boone. Evidence has shown that Boone attempted to sexually assault a enslaved black woman, who killed him in self-defense. Boone’s family involved the three young men who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Killian attributes much of the research to Melba Smith.

Melba had to seek and find the right people to tell the story, and even the whites who belonged to the whites who carried out the lynchings knew the story.

Sharon killian

The two created the Northwest Arkansas African American Heritage Association to begin documenting the histories of blacks in the region.

Smith discovered that she had ancestors who belonged to the Boone family and interviewed some of their living descendants.

n 1856 Aaron and Anthony likely lived in slave quarters that once stood along this tree-lined creek. The creek runs along the edge of the former Boone property located in Richland Township near Elkins, Arkansas. Randall may have resided in accommodations provided by the Williams family who lived near the Boone Estate. (Photo by Margaret Holcomb, 2019)

Not much is known today about Anthony, Aaron, or Randall’s life, but Killian says the pain they and many like them endured never quite goes away.

You take comfort in the fact that you are alive and you don’t have to deal with this kind of terrorism all the time But as you know it still happens to us By the police By authority …

Sharon killian

She and Huggins agree that this commemorative marker is a step in the right direction. They hope this will spark real conversation, action, and healing.

We have to get rid of white supremacy, that’s all. How can we get there. We treat the truth We treat the truth of the system as it is and we systematically make the change we need

Sharon killian

As Martin Luther King Jr. says, we have to learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish like fools and that’s what I consider life to be right now.

Wendell huggins

The organization partnered with the Equal Justice Initiative on this project, as part of a national movement to fight the legacy of racial terrorism.

Via Margaret Holcomb – According to the most historically consistent records, Aaron and Anthony were lynched on July 7, 1856, on or near Old Yell Place. The Archibald Yell Estate, known as the Waxhaws, included this house (pictured) which was built by Yell (1797 – 1847) between 1835 and 1836.. The house stood on what is now called South College Avenue. It was razed in the 1960s. The property now belongs to the Town of Fayetteville, and is adjacent to the Seniors Center. (Photo by Lester Jones, c. 1934, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division HABSARK, 72-FAYVI.V, 1-), Washington, DC 20540 USA

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THE MEMORY MARKER READS:

On July 7, 1856, a white mob from Elkins, AR kidnapped and lynched Aaron and Anthony. They were tried in the Washington County Courthouse for the death of a white man, James Boone, who enslaved them. Anthony was exonerated, Aaron was released for lack of evidence. In defiance of the rule of law, a mob led by Boones’ sons reacted violently, lynching Anthony and Aaron near jail, most likely on the estate of Archibald Yell, the late former Governor of Arkansas. Randall, a third accused slave who was found guilty by an all-white jury, challenged his verdict but was denied a new trial. Like the lynchings, court-ordered executions – with crowds waiting – did not require reliable findings of guilt. Randall was hanged by the state on August 1, 1856, presumably at Gallows Hill, which is now in Fayetteville National Cemetery, adjacent to Oaks Cemetery.

During this time when enslaved blacks were often confronted with violence from white slavers, local oral history claims that on May 29, 1856, James Boone attempted to sexually assault a enslaved black woman who had him. fatally assaulted in self-defense. The Boone family then implicated Aaron, Anthony, and Randall in Boones’ death. Slavery in Washington County, as elsewhere, has devalued the lives of black people, leading to violence, including sexual assault and lynchings for which hundreds of white perpetrators have never been held accountable.

Marker unveiling, May 15, 2021 – Photos below provided by Sharon Killian and Margaret Holcomb

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