Daily US History

September 19 is the anniversary of the height of The Ellenton Massacre in 1876. Trouble had started a few days earlier. A white woman reported being attacked by two black men. A white mob was formed shortly after, and had been growing for days. By the 19th, fueled further by anger over black voting rights, the mob had grown to over 500 white men.

They marauded through black communities for days, until the military showed up on the 19th to put a stop to it. As many as a hundred black people laid dead, and one white man. The fact that we don't know the exact numbers of black deaths speaks volumes about the incident.

As is customary in the United States, no white man saw prison time.