calsfoundation@cals.org
June 29, 1892
Robert Donnelly, an African American man, was lynched in Lee County by a mob of more than 200 other African Americans. His alleged crime was the repeated assault of a twelve-year-old Black girl. City marshal Mart Hill had taken Donnelly to Haynes (Lee County), where he was found guilty at a preliminary trial. During the afternoon, a crowd of Black citizens gathered around the jail, eventually numbering over 200. They took Donnelly and hanged him from a nearby tree, breaking his neck.