Some of the 300 to 500 people who tried to lynch a black teenager charged with raping a 14-year-old girl. The lynching was foiled when Tennessee National Guard troops shot and stabbed dozens of the attackers, four of them fatally, after tear gas proved ineffective (Shelbyville, 1934) [2048 x 1542].

In the center, wearing a long overcoat, is G.L. Gibson, father of the the girl. The mustached-man beside him, also brandishing a revolver, is his brother, the girl’s uncle. The accusation was truthful and Gibson’s daughter had the physical injuries to prove it. The attack occurred on November 20, 1934. One reported detail here is incorrect. Multiple articles described their target, E.K. Harris, as being in his early twenties. That is false. Harris was nearly an adult and looked older than he really was, but he was 17 years and nine months old at the time.

>Lillian Gibson, a Tennessee hill girl of 14, lived at Fall Creek, went to school at Stump Valley, near Shelbyville. One afternoon last month she started home after school. A while later, her teacher said, Lillian came running frantically back. Her clothes were partly torn off, her body bitten and bruised. She was screaming, “I’m gonna have a baby!”
>
>That night John Gibson, Lillian’s father, and a wrathful posse of 300 hillmen scoured the woods, caught a 22-year-old illiterate Negro named E.K. Harris. He was accused of Lillian’s rape, taken to the Shelbyville jail.

Harris confessed to attempted rape, but said he released the girl after she screamed (rape was a capital offense in Tennessee at the time, but attempted rape was not).

An initial hearing was set for the following morning. By nightfall, a crowd of about 500 local residents had converged on the town square demanding that Harris be handed over. Witnesses observed that many in the mob were armed and drinking heavily. Local officials recognized the danger and acted. To avoid a lynching, they arranged for a quick trial and transported the accused to Murfreesboro. When it appeared that the mob was preparing to go to Murfreesboro, Harris was moved to Nashville. He was returned to Shelbyville the next morning after a court refused to grant a change of venue.

>Harris’s trial was scheduled to begin at Shelbyville. Circuit Judge Coleman sensed trouble. The sheriff requested from Governor Hill McAlister enough militiamen to prevent disorder. Accordingly, when Harris was brought into Shelbyville he was riding in an olive drab militia truck and men from three companies of the 117th Tennessee National Guard were riding along with him.

During the trial, 111 troops of the 115th Tennessee National Guard field artillery unit arrived from Murfreesboro under command of Major G. S. Ridley and Captain Aultman Sanders to guard the courthouse. This time, however, things escalated. John Gibson said a doctor had told him that his daughter was pregnant (she was not pregnant). They rallied hundreds of people in the area and marched on the courthouse when the trial started. In the courtroom, Judge Coleman heard the mob shouting outside, tried to calm spectators with the assurance that it was just some sort of Christmas parade. The mob charged the courthouse.

However, the troops held firm, closing ranks in front of the courthouse and standing on guard with bayonets drawn and tear gas bombs ready. They started returning rocks with tear gas grenades. When the mob charged again, the troops responded the same way. They then retreated inside the courthouse. The third time the mob charged, the troops, now determined to hold the courthouse at all costs, opened fire. Four members of the lynch mob were killed, two at the scene.

The two killed at the scene were an unidentified man and 30-year-old painter Raleigh Edwards, who was shot and stabbed to death. The other two men who suffered fatal injuries were two of Lillian Gibson’s cousins, 27-year-old Floyd “Pat” Laws, whom the troops shot in the head as he charged up the steps, and 45-year-old Gilford Freeman, who was shot in the chest and stomach. After Adjutant General J.H. Ballew advised Judge Coleman that he would have to kill as many as 100 people for Harris to be tried in Shelbyville, a mistrial was declared. The troops dressed Harris in a uniform overcoat, leggings, and cap, and put a gas mask on him. They rushed him out of the court to a car and drove him to Nashville.

[Scenes from the attempted lynching of E.K. Harris](https://imgur.com/a/bFv79ST)

The troops were ordered to abandon the courthouse and retreat on foot to their trucks.

>”Henry Alexander was driving one army truck when it was seized by rioters and burned. Alexander stated he pointed his pistol at the leader of the gang that approached the truck and told him if he moved another step he would be killed. ‘I don’t believe it,’ the mob-man said, and advanced. Alexander wisely cast the pistol aside and abandoned the truck.” After returning from Shelbyville, several of the young guardsmen stopped at the City Café for supper and to share their experience with restaurant patrons.
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>”One soldier told of stabbing a rioter when the mob made its first attack. The soldiers were ordered to fix bayonets, and when the mob surged forward the men in back pushed the front line right onto the bayonets. The blade went deep into the rioter’s abdomen…”
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>The Murfreesboro Guard unit suffered no casualties.
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>Harris’s escape was soon discovered and further infuriated the mob. Anger focused on local officials who had fled the scene fearing for their own safety.

The mob burned the trucks of the soldiers. They also burned down the Bedford County courthouse. The building had been constructed in 1867 and was estimated to have a worth of $200,000, equivalent to nearly $5 million today.

[The courthouse on fire](https://imgur.com/a/K4GkaaG)

[The aftermath of the fire](https://imgur.com/a/c8WmvgP)

[A video of the aftermath](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AB8S00R8JI)

By the weekend, 600 National Guardsmen were in the town protecting remaining public buildings and utilities. These were units called up by the governor from Winchester, Nashville, Cleveland and Jackson. In an aftermath of the failed lynching, John Gibson bitterly declared: “The fire hain’t started to burn yet. Our people back in the hills ain’t agoin’ to forget. They can keep the National Guards here for months, but that won’t matter. I took Pat Lawes, who was my nephew by marriage, and Gill Freeman with me to the trial in my truck. Now both of ’em are dead. Governor McAlister is the man who did it all.” Gibson gave an interview a day later. Gibson was still bitter, albeit he gave an actual explanation for why he’d built up so much rage.

[The full interview](https://newspapers.com/article/chattanooga-daily-times/80948798/) (below are just excerpts)

>”I think I have had my share of trouble this year. Last August my wife died suddenly. Then came this to my baby daughter. I can’t sleep at night-I get so worried at times I can hardly stand it. Now if you want to know how I feel about this I’ll tell you or any one else. It just looks to me like they are trying to kill out my family and protect that Negro. Yes, I want the people to know how I feel about it. I think I have done better about this than most any man. The best man in this country told me this afternoon that I had acted better than he could have. I told my attorney and my best “I friends that I wanted the man tried convicted. I am ready for trial and time they are. While I want a trial, I can’t be responsible for what the people in three counties do.”
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>”Pat Laws is my nephew. They told me at the hospital this morning that he can’t live. They gassed my son, John Henry Gibson, so bad that he had to have a doctor last night. He was standing there not doing a thing. He didn’t even have a pistol.”

The NAACP praised officials for preventing a lynching, declaring a mistrial, and granting a change in venue for Harris. Likewise, the commander of the troops that day, Lieutenant Colonel John R. Stark, had very little sympathy for John Gibson and none for the others. Most of those killed and wounded by the troops were not related to Gibson’s daughter. The unidentified member of the lynch mob who was killed wasn’t even from the county.

>”Every shot that was fired by the guardsmen was fired in self-defense. The discipline of the men was absolutely perfect.”

[Several newspaper editorials said the same](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-age-editorials-praise-defea/184627526/):

>The law was taking its course, but that didn’t suit these people; they wanted the fun of a sadistic lynching orgy. National Guardsmen, on duty to prevent violence to the accused, did their duty.
>
>Curiously enough the mob then proceeded to burn the courthouse, its own public property.

A local Methodist minister, Oliver Largen, tried to organize a committee to identify the leaders of the lynch mob. After several threatening letters, the minister’s home was burned with his family barely escaping injury. A smaller mob tried to burn down a small black hotel, albeit the fire was quickly extinguished. The son of Gilford Freeman attacked a black orderly handling his father’s body. He nearly stabbed the man before being disarmed.