Upstate Police Chiefs Outline Community Efforts in AAR&RI Event
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
The Anderson Area Remembrance and Reconciliation Initiative (AAR&RI) hosted a community forum on pubic safety and community on Tuesday, featuring law enforcement chiefs from three Upstate cities.
Anderson Police Chief Jim Stewart, Greer Police Chief Matt Hamby and Spartanburg Police Chief Alonzo Thompson told the crowd of their respective departments’ activities to promote community connections and public safety.
Hosted at the AnMed North Campus, the event also featured Anderson University Professor Bobby Rettew’s collaborative work with students on a film, “Finding Reuben,” which remembers one of the victims of lynching in Anderson County between 1894-1911, Reuben Elrod.
These are the stories of the five men memorialized by the Anderson County Equal Justice Initiative:
Reuben Elrod, senior citizen. Piedmont. Reuben Elrod was at his family home in Anderson County when a white mob attacked the house, shooting and killing him and brutally whipping the three women in the house on June 30, 1903. Elrod’s address is unknown, but reports indicate he lived just a few miles outside of Piedmont, in Williamston Township or Brushy Creek Township. Records suggest he or other family members may have lived in a residence near the border of Brushy Creek and Williamston Townships.
Ed Sullivan, Williamston. On December 12, 1894, a white mob of at least 500 men lynched a Black teenaged boy named “Ed” Sullivan just outside the city limits of Williamston.
The death of a white boy sparked mob violence and retaliation, suspicion was directed towards Edward Sullivan, and despite attempts by law enforcement to transfer him to the Anderson County Jail – 15 miles away - for safety, the mob captured him and hanged him to a hickory tree and shot him repeatedly. There is no indication anyone was held accountable for his lynching. The two officers escorting Edward Sullivan were approximately five miles outside of Williamston when the mob overtook them. Based on an 1897 map of Anderson County, South Carolina, the main road leading from Williamston to Anderson is comparable to what is today Anderson Highway.
Elbert Harris, age unknown, Iva. On May 20, 1898, a constable was transporting Elbert Harris from Iva, South Carolina to the county jail in Anderson, South Carolina when a white mob of at least 20 men seized Harris about two-three miles into the journey and whipped him. Four days after the mob’s brutal attack, Elbert Harris died at the county jail in Anderson, but no one was ever held accountable for his lynching. The exact location of Elbert Harris’s lynching is unknown. The county jail in Anderson was originally located on what was then the corner of Jail Street and Church Street. The current Anderson City Jail, built in 1956, is located on 401 S Main Street, near the location of the former county jail.
John Laddison, age unknown, Anderson, Dobbins Bridge Road and New Hope Road. On November 24, 1901, at least 200 people in Anderson County gathered to lynch John Laddison in a public spectacle lynching.
Rock Mills Township, white mobs gathered at the plantation where the incident occurred and, led by the sheriff, searched for a suspect. Traveling westward, the mob used bloodhounds and hunted for the alleged black man for more than 12 hours, passing by a plantation owned by Robert Chamblee and reaching the Savannah River. The next day, the mob located Laddison several miles near the plantation where the incident occurred on a farm that he previously worked on and lynched him a mile from the farm near “Gray’s gin house.” In 1901, the Rock Mills Township was in the central-west region of Anderson County where the county line meets the Savannah River.
Reports that the plantation on which the incident occurred was owned by a prominent family with the surname Glenn. An 1877 map of Rock Mills Township illustrates two plantations owned by the Chamblee and Glenn families in the eastern part of the township near Devil Forks Creek. Today, an old gin house is located a few miles from these plantations near Devil Forks Creek in the eastern part of what was Rock Mills Township
Willis Jackson, Honea Path. On October 10, 1911, an angry white mob led by a local state legislator pursued a young black teenager named Willis Jackson on a 100-mile chase intent on lynching him. Starting from Honea Path, the mob pursued law enforcement officers and Willis Jackson to Anderson, Greenville, and part-way to Spartanburg. The mob overtook the officers and Willis Jackson in a wooded area about “six miles north of Greenville” prior to reaching Spartanburg. The mob took Jackson back to Honea Path, and lynched him near the site of the alleged assault of a white girl. Despite members of the mob being known members of the community and there being hundreds to even thousands of spectators, no one was held accountable for the lynching of Jackson.