Lynching of Shedrick Thompson

Shedrick Thompson was an African-American man from Fauquier County, Virginia, who was accused of crimes against his white employers in 1932. He was later found dead, hanging from a tree. Upon discovery, his body was mutilated and burned. While an official verdict declared it a suicide, others maintained that he was lynched. He was 39.

Early life Shedrick Thompson (also called "Shadrack", "Shadrock" and "Shadric" in some newspaper articles) grew up in Fauquier, the third of nine children born to Fannie and Merrington Thompson. In 1917 "he was drafted into the Army, trained in Arkansas, and shipped to France to serve with other 'colored' troops." He was honorably discharged, returned to Fauquier, married, and resumed his former life as a farmhand.

Accusation of battery, robbery, and rape His white next-door neighbors and employers, Henry and Mamie Baxley, claimed that on July 17, 1932, Thompson attacked them. They alleged Thompson beat Henry unconscious and took Mamie to a nearby field where he raped and beat her, as well as stealing her rings. Both Baxleys survived. Mrs. Baxley "said she believed the man harbored a grudge against her and her husband who had once given information that resulted in Thompson's imprisonment".

Manhunt Thompson fled into the mountains. The biggest manhunt in the county's history was launched, with posses, bloodhounds, "uthorities expressed the opinion that Thompson had probably been dead five or six weeks."

Before the deputy sheriff arrived, a mob assembled and burned the body.

The official story From the beginning, local and state officials denied that a lynching had taken place. In 1928, then-Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr. signed into law "the first effective anti-lynching law", (See Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.) Byrd saw this law as a key achievement of his administration and claimed with pride that there had never been another lynching in Virginia. He had just been a candidate for the 1932 U.S. presidential nomination, was close to Roosevelt, was frequently mentioned as a possible cabinet appointee, and would soon be appointed, then elected Senator from Virginia. "Byrd's ascension to the national political stage was based in part on his reputation as the architect of the nation's strictest anti-lynching law." According to the sheriff there had been no lynching in Fauquier County within his memory, and it was an absolute case of suicide.

Byrd became personally involved, writing and having his friends write the NAACP, insisting that there had not been a lynching.

(The Commonwealth Attorney said Thompson jumped off a pile of rocks he had made, so as to break his own neck. ) As soon as the coroner's verdict was published, "rumors began to circulate stating that the negro had been lynched by the angry mob that had been scouring through Rattlesnake Mountain the week following the negro's alleged attack and alleged escape, armed with knives, picks, shotguns, ropes, and mowing blades. One rumor even stated the date the lynching occurred and gave the number in the lynching party as six men…" The coroner said he paid no attention to these rumors, which were "bare lies". Early reports said the body was burned before any law enforcement official arrived, Yet the coroner said that a sheriff's deputy inspected the body before it was burned, and the stomach and abdomen were in "perfect condition so far as any signs of mutilation or beating was concerned". Furthermore, he said he had the skull in his possession...and after several examinations could find no sign of a bullet hole or any indication of rough treatment."

As it was put by the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, "'Suicide' Is Now Synonymous to 'Lynching' in Virginia".

The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia Retired Virginia reporter Jim Hall started investigating the Thompson case "because the official version of what happened...did not make sense" "He checked military records of Thompson and Baxley, who both served in the First World War, property deeds and land records, newspaper accounts, and personal diaries." He interviewed family and neighbors of both the Baxleys and Thompson. He "was shocked, as he read through Byrd's papers at the University of Virginia...[and] came to believe Byrd was motivated to 'protect his reputation ... not to get to the bottom' of what happened to Thompson." "The grand jury and the coroner...saw their job as protection of the status quo...and they did their duty to protect and shield the status quo from all the implications of a lynching verdict'". "Suicide didn't make any sense to anyone."

Hall's research led to a 2016 book, The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia: Seeking Truth at Rattlesnake Mountain (2016).

He calls the lynching of Shedrick Thompson "an open wound" in Fauquier County.

The Other Side of Eden: Stories of a Virginia Lynching Accompanying Hall during his on-site research and interviews was Tom Davenport, an independent filmmaker from Fauquier County. "Hall asked the questions, and Davenport filmed the interview over Hall's shoulder."

The result was a 59-minute documentary, The Other Side of Eden: Stories of a Virginia Lynching (2018), in which 5 separate people asserted that Thompson had been lynched, corroborating the stories of his castration and burning, and other torture.