Скачать или смотреть Lynching Site Soil Collection: Leonard Woods, Pound Gap, VA/KY

On July 7th, 2021, the Wise County Virginia Community Remembrance Project conducted a soil gathering ceremony at the lynching site of Leonard Woods. Community members and organizers read the account of the atrocity that occurred there and collected soil to be included in the (eji_org) Equal Justice Initiative's Soil Collection Project. The Wise County Community Remembrance Project is working with the Commonwealth of Virginia for the placement of a permanent marker in the gap.

Leonard Woods, an African American man, was lynched at Pound Gap on the Virginia/Kentucky border on November 30th, 1927, for the murder of Harshall Deaton, a white mine foreman.


On the night of November 27th, 1927, Harshall Deaton, a white mine foreman from Virginia, was killed in Jenkins, Kentucky. Leonard Woods, Susan Armister, and Anna Mae Emery, all black, were accused of being involved in the murder, as it was suggested that the trio thought that Deaton was driving a taxi cab, and when asked for a ride, Deaton refused. This angered the trio. It was reported that one of the women pulled a gun on him and Woods took the gun and shot Deaton to death. After Woods’ arrest, he was moved from Jenkins to Whitesburg, Kentucky, as there were serious threats of mob violence. This however, did not stop the mob. Soon after midnight, on November 30th, a mob of about 400 people from Virginia took Woods from the Whitesburg Jail and brought him to the Virginia-Kentucky state line and lynched him there. Leonard Woods was shot to death and his body was placed on a platform that was to be used for the dedication ceremony of the new highway opening from Kentucky to Virginia. Gasoline was poured over his body and torched to signal his death.