Henry Choate was an 18-year-old African-American teen who was

lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

by a mob in

Columbia, Tennessee Columbia is a city in and the county seat of Maury County, Tennessee. The population was 41,690 as of the 2020 United States census. Columbia is included in the Nashville metropolitan area. The self-proclaimed "mule capital of the world," Colum ...

, on November 13, 1927. Choate was accused of having assaulted 16-year old Sarah Harlan, a white girl, and was taken to the Columbia jail, despite Harlan not being able to identify Choate as the attacker. A mob numbering hundreds of people sprang him from the jail, dragged him through the city behind a car, and then hanged him from the courthouse. During the lynching, Harlan's mother begged the mob to spare Choate's life. A

grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...

declined to file any charges.

Lynching

Choate was working on a road construction project in

Coffee County, Tennessee Coffee County is a county located in the central part of the state of Tennessee, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 57,889. Its county seat is Manchester. Coffee County is part of the Tullahoma-Manchester ...

, and went to Columbia on

Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I a ...

to visit his grandfather, Henry Clay Harlan, who was 85 years old, born into slavery, and lived about seven miles west of Columbia. During that visit, a young white girl, 16-year old Sarah Harlan (no relation to Henry Clay) claimed she had been attacked by a young black man. The sheriff of Maury County, Sam Wiley, brought in a pack of bloodhounds. Choate was arrested and put in the county jail, despite Sarah Harlan saying she could not identify Choate as the perpetrator. The sheriff's wife, Mrs. Wiley, alerted the "Negro cook of the jail", Ella Gant, that a group of men were going to come and kill Choate. Gant brought him cigarettes and told him the news, and that he should pray. When the mob came, Mrs. Wiley hid the keys and told the mob she wasn't going to see "an innocent boy hung". But when a man started pounding at the jail door with a hammer, and the use of dynamite was threatened, she procured the key. The mob, some 250 men, opened the jail, got Choate out, and someone hit him with a hammer on the head, killing him. They then tied him to a truck and dragged him through the streets, and up into the courthouse. There he was hanged, from the second story of the County Courthouse in Columbia, which was still decorated for Armistice Day. During the lynching, Sarah Harlan's mother begged the mob to let Choate live and instead let the case go to trial. Two weeks after the lynching, a

declined to file charges. While acknowledging that the lynching was a criminal offense, the grand jury stated in their ruling that witnesses were unable to positively identify any perpetrators.

References

; ; {{DEFAULTSORT:Choate, Henry 1927 in Tennessee 1927 murders in the United States African-American history of Tennessee Columbia, Tennessee Deaths by person in Tennessee Lynching deaths in Tennessee Maury County, Tennessee Murdered African-American people November 1927 events People murdered in Tennessee Race-related controversies in the United States Racially motivated violence against African Americans

Lynching

See also

References