Three African American men were lynched in Douglass, Texas (about 15 miles west of Nacogdoches City) between February 14 and February 23, 1891. Henry Rollins, Tom Robin, and Tom Rowland were all murdered. Some of their crimes seemed small, but, as we all know about Texas, the consequences were indeed much bigger. These lynchings ultimately underscored the power of violent mobs during a time of escalating racial violence in Nacogdoches County at the end of the nineteenth century, quite literally bleeding into the twentieth century.
On Valentine’s Day February 14, 1891 three masked men lynched Henry Rollins for attempting to assault a white woman. The lynching of Tom Robin took place two days later (February 16, 1891). The reason? The media reported Robin a “notorious character” with allegations of committing many past crimes. Finally, on February 23, 1891 a mob hung Tom Rowland. Contradicting reports tell us that Rowland was lynched for robbing a country store or possibly for the theft of a pair of shoes (or one in the same). Either way, a local Constable arrested him, but a mob broke into the jail and murdered him before any trial or legal proceedings took place. All three men, in fact, were accused of a variety of crimes but received the same extralegal capital punishment, meted out by angry white mobs and not the judicial courts. [1]
The power of the mob reigned during the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Such mobs often sprang from white fears and anxieties, particularly those fueled by demographic change (such as a growing African American population), politics (such as the Populist championing of some African American rights), and economic pressures (such a depressed economy and growing competition among races for jobs and resources). Douglass, Texas by 1891, in fact, had been changing. In 1860, for instance, the population stood at only 380. Most were white. By 1880, however, the population rose to 1,023, including 408 African Americans. The explosion of population and demographic, racial change, along with the arrival of railroads, primarily the Houston East and West Railway, also meant much more competition for work, housing, and other resources. The white population likely feared they were losing out and to African Americans. [2]
African Americans were a common target for mobs. Anxiety and fear about African Americans made it very easy for accusations of petty crimes to spiral into community wide panic, leading to a perceived need to deal with an imagined threat. While a fear of African Americans was also not new and dates to at least colonial slavery, the lack of total white control following emancipation and a diversifying economy with industrialization fueled white anxieties and paranoia nonetheless, leading many to resort to so-called mob justice.
The lynchings in Douglass, Texas happened in quick succession over about a week-and-a-half. They unquestionably reflect the power of the mob, but also a reactionary outbreak of violence by white locals scared of change and competition. The crimes of Henry Rollins, Tom Robin, and Tom Rowland were all accusatory. No one investigated the allegations. No law enforcement officials intervened to force such or to curb violence. No one was convicted for these men’s murders. The white mobs murdered at will.