Leonard Woods Lynched
N 37° 09.288 W 082° 37.860
17S E 355169 N 4113290
A Virginia historical marker about Leonard Woods who was a black American man who was lynched by a mob in Pound Gap, on the border between Kentucky and Virginia, after they broke him out from jail in Whitesburg, Kentucky, on November 30, 1927.
Waymark Code: WM154TN
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 10/16/2021
Views: 2
XB 27 LEONARD WOODS LYNCHED
Marker text:
"Leonard Woods, a black coal miner from Jenkins.
KY. was lynched near here on the night of 29-30
Nov. 1927. Officers had arrested Woods for
allegedly killing Herschel Deaton, a white man
from Coeburn, VA, and had taken him to the
Whitesburg, KY. Jail. On the day of Deaton's
funeral, a white mob numbering in the hundreds
broke into the Jail and brought Woods close to this
spot, where they hanged, shot. and burned him.
No one was ever arrested. In the aftermath, at
the urging of Norfolk editor Louis Jaffé, Norton's
Bruce Crawford, and other journalists, VA Gov.
Harry F. Byrd worked with the General Assembly
early in 1928 to pass the nation's first law
defining lynching as a state crime."
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORIC RESOURCES, 2020.
Marker Number: XB 27
Marker Title: Leonard Woods Lynched
Marker Location: US 23 South at Pound Gap
County or Independent City: Pound
Web Site: [Web Link]
Marker Program Sponsor: Department of Historical Resources
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