Untold Stories Collection

Slocum used to be home to a thriving African American community with several businesses and farms. That is until the massacre that occurred in 1910. There are various reports as to what started the event in the first place; the lynching of a black man in nearby Cherokee County wish sparked racial tension, rumors that black residents were meeting in Slocum to plan an armed rebellion, racial tension that intensified when a white man reportedly sought to collect a disputed debt from a well-respected farmer named Abe Wilson, or a local white farmer named Jim Spurger enraged because of a road construction foreman putting an African American in charge of soliciting aid for road improvements. 

Many newspapers and eyewitnesses reported that Spurger was the primary agitator of the conflict leading to the massacre. White vigilantes driven by Spurger and an angry mob from all around Anderson County heavily armed themselves and roamed around Slocum in groups. According to some reports, there were about 200 angry men. These men fired guns at black residents. News broke out within the community and many African Americans attempted to flee the city, however, were tailed by mobs into surrounding forests and marshes. The residents were chased by the mob and shot in the back while attempting to escape. Initially, the newspaper portrayed the African Americans as “armed instigators” which was not the case in the slightest. 

The estimated death toll of black residents was from eight to twenty-two victims, however, members of the black community contrasted the reports, stating that it was a minimum of forty victims and may have even reached 200. William H. Black who was the Anderson County Sheriff at the time stated that it was a challenge to obtain the death toll because the bodies were scattered all over the woods. 

Almost all of Slocum’s residents were subpoenaed to testify and those who refused were arrested. Spurger and at least fifteen other white men were arrested and indicted on twenty-two counts of murder. However, the indictments were ignored when Judge Benjamin Howard Garner moved the trial to Harris County where the charges were eventually dropped. None of the attackers were ever prosecuted.