Aaron Jimerson (Lynching of)

On August 8, 1917, an African-American man named Aaron Jimerson was lynched at Foreman (Little River County) for an alleged attack on a local constable.

Jimerson, who was born in 1887, married eighteen-year-old Virginia Hooks at Foreman in 1914. According to the Arkansas Democrat, Constable Sam Anderson arrested Jimerson on August 8 for shooting at another African American. As Anderson was opening the jail door to put Jimerson into a cell, Jimerson grabbed him and stole his pistol. Anderson retrieved the gun, but before he could use it, Jimerson hit him with a wooden stick. Jimerson then escaped but was soon recaptured by a posse led by Sheriff W. D. Waldron. He was placed in jail, but a mob broke down the door of the jail during the night and took Jimerson to a telephone pole, where they hanged him.

Virginia Jimerson may have remained in Little River County after her husband’s murder. In December 1917, at age twenty, she married Tim Cush in Foreman. In 1920, they were living in Richland Township there. They divorced in 1926, and in 1930 Virginia was boarding in the home of Jesse Ducket in Richland Township.

For additional information:
“Negro Is Lynched by Mob at Foreman.” Arkansas Democrat, August 9, 1917, p. 1.

“Negro Resists Officer and Is Lynched by Mob.” Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, August 10, 1917, p. 4.

Nancy Griffith
Davidson, North Carolina