The Last Lynching in Northern Virginia: Seeking Truth at Rattlesnake Mountain

by Jim Hall, Claudine L. Ferrell PhD (Introduction)

Overview

In 1932, a black man was found hanging on Rattlesnake Mountain in Fauquier County. A mob set fire to his body. Officials identified the remains as Shedrick Thompson, wanted for the abduction and rape of a local white woman. Some claimed Thompson killed himself--the final act of a desperate fugitive. But residents knew better, calling the tragedy a lynching--the last one known in Virginia. Author Jim Hall takes an in-depth look at the events to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Virginia history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467135658
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/12/2016
Series:	True Crime
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	795,573
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Jim Hall was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Falls Church, Virginia. He received a bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and a master's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He now lives in Fredericksburg. His thirty-six-year newspaper career included stints as a reporter and editor, first at the Caroline Progress, a weekly in Bowling Green, Virginia, and then at the Free Lance-Star, a daily in Fredericksburg. He retired in 2013.

Editorial Reviews

"When he retired from The Free Lance'Star in 2013, Hall didn't put away his notebook--or his curiosity. Instead, the Fredericksburg resident fixed his attention on what would become the biggest challenge of his writing career: what really happened to Shedrick Thompson on Rattlesnake Mountain in northern Fauquier County.

In his book, Hall applied the same meticulous and never-waste-a-word approach he used as a reporter... The story examines both the incident--that made headlines across the state and sent residents into a panic--and the time and place in which it happened."Free Lance Star

"The writer instinctively understood Virginia's last "known" lynching would make for a gripping story.

"It had the elements of race, violence " murder, assault " and sex," retired Fredericksburg Free LanceStar reporter Jim Hall said.

And, it would give an enterprising journalist a chance to set the record straight about an alleged suicide that Mr. Hall and many others considered a lynching."Fauquier Now

From the Publisher