Abstract:
Bryant continues his series of articles, this time recalling the events surrounding a murder of a farm family around the turn of the century in Rowan County named Lyerly -- father, mother, and three children. Five African American farm hands, three men and two women, were charged. Before the trial was concluded, the jail was broken into and the three men were lynched; the women were beaten and set free. Bryant tells of an unknown man in a Panama hat who incited the mob to lynch the prisoners.