The Lynching of Bob Brackett

EJI-Community Remembrance Project - Asheville in Buncombe County, North Carolina

Marker inscription:
On August 11, 1897, Bob Brackett, a Black man, was lynched by a mob of at least 1.000 white people in Reems Creek Township. Mr. Brackett was a traveling laborer working in the Asheville, North Carolina area.

On August 8, 1897, a white woman from Weaverville reported an assault. Race-based suspicion was immediately directed towards Black men in the area. On August 10, despite a lack of evidence and no investigation, a mob of white men seized Mr. Brackett at the home of a local reverend in nearby Barnardsville, and Mr. Brackett was detained in the Buncombe County Jail in Asheville.

An angry white mob stormed the jail, only to discover that the sheriff had taken Mr. Brackett on the train to Raleigh. Determined to lynch Mr. Brackett, the mob abducted him from the sheriff at the Terrell train station and marched him approximately 12 miles by foot towards the location of the reported attack.

Before making it to Weaverville, the mob of at least 1,000 lynched Mr. Brackett on the grounds of the Hemphill School.

During this era, unfound suspicion was regularly directed at African Americans, who were burdened with a presumption of quilt that made them vulnerable to lawless white mob violence, especially when a white woman reported an assault. Racial terror lynchings were bold acts to maintain white domination, and local officials granted impunity to mob participants.

No one was ever held accountable for the lynching of Bob Brackett.
-End marker inscription-
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Marker erected 2021 by Equal Justice Initiative, Buncombe Community Remembrance Project.
Photographed By Dave W, August 27, 2022
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Background:
The Buncombe Community Remembrance Project and the MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County partnered with EJI to dedicate three historical markers today in memory of three documented victims of racial terror lynching in Buncombe County: John Humphries (1888), Hezekiah Rankin (1891), and Bob Brackett (1897).

The dedication ceremony took place in downtown Asheville at Pack Square Park, where the marker memorializing John Humphries stands near the jail where a white mob abducted the teenager before he was lynched.

The marker memorializing the lynching of Bob Brackett is located at Triangle Park in The Block, a historically Black business district in Asheville.

The third marker, which memorializes the lynching of Hezekiah Rankin, was erected in front of the Craven Street Bridge in the River Arts District near the site where he was lynched.

Over 200 community members gathered at Pack Square Park on a rainy Saturday morning for the opening ceremony.

The program began after a musical selection by local performing arts group Westsound Productions, which provided the soundtrack for the event.

Coalition liaison and Vice Chair of the MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County Dr. Joseph Fox made opening remarks. Civil rights liaison and MLK Association Chair Dr. Oralene Simmons spoke about the coalition’s formation and how community stakeholders came together to advance the Historical Marker Project, as well as a Soil Collection Project and Racial Justice Essay Contest.

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer connected the work of the Buncombe Community Remembrance Project to the city’s commitment to contemporary racial justice work, including a reparations initiative that is underway in Asheville.

County Commissioner Brownie Newman offered remarks reflecting on various manifestations of racial injustice in Buncombe County today and emphasized the need to end mass incarceration, housing discrimination, and the devastation of urban renewal projects.
Coalition liaison and Buncombe County Schools educator Eric Grant recognized the winners of the EJI Racial Justice Essay Contest and teachers who supported the contest.

The three winners—Sarah Ann Buchanan of North Buncombe High School, Jennifer Russ of the School of Inquiry and Life Sciences in Asheville, and Montana Gura of Asheville High School—were invited to read their essays at the marker unveilings, which took place at the site of the markers following the main ceremony.

The Rev. Brent La Prince Edwards centered the audience in prayer throughout the ceremony and unveilings.