November 18, 1921

Nineteen-year-old William Turner was lynched in Helena (Phillips County) for allegedly attacking a young white girl. He was arrested and placed in the jail, which adjoined the courthouse. According to the Arkansas Gazette, local citizens, in a state of “suppressed excitement,” began to gather near the courthouse during the afternoon. In an attempt to protect Turner from harm, two deputy sheriffs put him into a car shortly after dark to take him to jail in nearby Marianna (Lee County). They were only a short distance outside of Helena when they were stopped by a mob of twenty-five to thirty masked men who demanded the prisoner. The deputies, outnumbered, surrendered him, and he was shot by the roadside.