In 1920 in Person County, in the rolling Piedmont region of north-central North Carolina, on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Sappony tribe, the self-declared “Person County Mob” claims responsibility for the July 7 lynching of Ed Roach, a Black road laborer accused of assaulting a white girl, though his white employer will provide evidence to the contrary.

Throughout early October, Black residents receive letters from the Person County Mob instructing them to leave their homes and the county or face violence. On October 13, dynamite is detonated near the Roxboro home of an older Black woman while she is inside, destroying windows and doors.

Many Black residents leave the area in the weeks that follow.

Nobody is ever held accountable for the violence or the terror.