On October 21, 1916, Anthony P. Crawford, a notable African American entrepreneur and community leader, was lynched by a mob in Abbeville, South Carolina.
A century ago, a white mob brutally beat, stabbed, shot, and hanged Mr. Crawford, a 56-year-old Black farmer, in the Abbeville town square after he dared to argue with a white merchant over the price of cottonseed. As the patriarch of a large, multi-generational family and the owner of 427 acres of land, Mr. Crawford was a successful farmer and respected leader. His murder had far-reaching consequences.
Despite the public nature of the gruesome act, no members of the mob were prosecuted or convicted. In the days following the lynching, Abbeville’s white residents voted to expel the Crawford family from the area and seize their property. With South Carolina’s governor declaring himself powerless to protect the family from violence, most surviving relatives fled to distant locations such as New York and Illinois, fragmenting the once strong and close-knit family.
The long-term impact on Crawford’s family and descendants was profound. They lost their land and were forced to join the Great Migration, starting anew in the North.