Crane Green (Lynching of)

On July 19, 1903, a twenty-three-year-old African American man named Crane Green was lynched near Warren (Bradley County) for allegedly assaulting the daughter of a white sawmill worker named Baker.

Baker and Green were employees of Childs’ mill near Warren. Green allegedly assaulted Baker’s thirteen-year-old daughter on Saturday, July 18, leaving her “considerably injured.” Green escaped, but the word went out, and local officers sent his description to law enforcement officers throughout the region. He was eventually captured in Lanark (Bradley County). A posse started out to take him to the county jail, but on the way they encountered a mob.

According to the Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, the mob had assembled on the Kingsland Road about five miles north of Warren. When the officers arrived with Green, members of the mob took him and hanged him from a nearby tree. Once they were sure he was dead, they quietly dispersed, and news of the lynching did not arrive in Warren until a farmer reported finding his body hanging beside the road the following morning. According to a July 21 report in the Arkansas Democrat, there had not yet been an inquest, but “it will doubtless result in a verdict to the effect that he was hanged by unknown parties.”

For additional information:
“Hanging from a Limb.” Arkansas Democrat, July 21, 1903, p. 1.

“Lynching near Warren.” Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, July 20, 1903, p. 1.

Nancy Snell Griffith
Davidson, North Carolina