PITTSBORO — One hundred years and two days after Eugene Daniel was lynched by a mob of Chatham County men, county commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution formally apologizing “for any part an elected official or appointed local official played” in his 1921 murder.
Daniel, who was Black, had been 16 for just a week when he was murdered.
Commissioner Karen Howard, the only Black member on the five-person board, read the resolution at the board's Monday meeting and seconded the motion made to approve it.
“There is evidence that a Chatham County Commissioner, the Chatham County Sheriff, the Chatham County Coroner, and the Chatham County Jail keeper were complicit in the perpetration of the murder by lynching of Eugene Daniel,” Howard read from the resolution.
”The Chatham County Board of Commissioners does hereby apologize on behalf of any appointed or elected local public official, who participated in, witnessed, facilitated, censored, suppressed, or was in any way involved in the lynching of Eugene Daniel, and the subsequent failure to prosecute those involved to the fullest extent of the law,” Howard read. “...The Chatham County Board of Commissioners expresses to the family and descendants our deepest sympathies and regret for the death of Eugene Daniel, and the denial of his dignity and basic human rights.”
The consideration of this resolution was added to the meeting agenda on Monday night; its approval was met by applause from those present at the meeting. Howard and Commissioner Diana Hales attend a memorial and libation service for Daniel on Saturday, hosted by the Community Remembrance Coalition of Chatham County, at New Hope Baptist Church — the cemetery of which is Daniel’s final resting place.
White Americans lynched thousands of Black people — primarily men — in the 19th and 20th centuries as a form of racial terrorism and social control. Nearly 99% of those involved in such lynchings went unpunished, the county’s resolution says. By definition, according to the NAACP, a lynching is the public killing of an individual who has not yet receive due process, often carried out by large lawless mobs.
About 72 percent of people lynched in the 19th and 20th centuries were Black, according to the NAACP, but they weren’t the only victims of lynching. Immigrants, along with some white people aiding Black people or being anti-lynching, were also lynched.
Of Chatham’s six lynching victims; Daniel was the last of the lynching victims to die, is the first to be formally remembered.
After being accused and arrested for trespassing and attempted rape — though Daniel never faced his accuser — was unlawfully taken from the Chatham County Jail in Pittsboro on Sept. 17 and lynched at a site near Moore’s Bridge, east of town, on the basis of an unsubstantiated allegation, a day later.
In light of remembering this tragedy, Commissioner Jim Crawford urged the community to think about the racial injustices that continue today, prior to making the motion to approve the resolution.
“We’re having a reckoning in this country with the changes with our demographics, and that’s forcing us to look at white supremacy,” he said. “The question is often asked, ‘Why bring up this painful chapter? You’re seeking to cause harm and make divisions.’ My answer to that is, this is how one gains atonement. This is how we as a community acknowledge the roots of injustices that continue in many ways.”
Crawford pointed out that the day after the lynching, young African American men were brought to the Historic Courthouse — where commissioners convened Monday night —and given “a talking to” by county officials. He called on residents to acknowledge this painful history in a step toward healing.
“If we don’t address this and begin to have these really difficult conversations about what could have been taught to the succeeding generations about what happened that day, we’re never going to unravel this,” Howard said. “I encourage us all to take that really, truly bitter fruit and talk to our neighbors and friends about who we were, who we are and who we want to be.”
Reporter Hannah McClellan can be reached at hannah@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @HannerMcClellan.