Joe Pullen

Joe Pullen
Born	c. 1883
Died	December 15, 1923 Drew, Mississippi, United States
Cause of death	Lynching
Occupation	tenant farmer
Killings
Date	December 14, 1923
Location(s)	Drew, Mississippi, United States
Killed	4-13
Injured	8-26
Weapons	.38-caliber revolver shotgun

Joe Pullen or Joe Pullum (c. 1883 - December 15, 1923) was an African-American tenant farmer who was murdered by a lynch mob of local white citizens near Drew, Mississippi on December 15, 1923. While the circumstances that precipitated the violence were typical for that place and time, Pullen's case is unusual in that he managed to kill at least three members of the lynch mob and wound several others before ultimately perishing himself. Because of his courage, Pullen became a folk hero and his bravery was championed by the Universal Negro Improvement Association. While the incident received only brief national news coverage, the local repercussions were far more profound. As civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer recalled in an autobiographical essay on growing up in a nearby Mississippi town: "it was a while in Mississippi before the whites tried something like that again."

Reports of lynchings in the American South had been on the rise since the end of World War I, which may have reflected an increase in the number of incidents. Over the course of the previous decade, eighty-six people had been lynched within the state of Mississippi alone (eighty-three black men, two white men, and one black woman). The rate varied by season, with fewer lynchings during the October and November harvest season when labor was at a premium, and a greater number once the harvest had been brought in and the process of "settling up" between plantation owner and sharecropper began. Up to this point there had been a handful of lynchings nationwide that had met with resistance, but the efforts to fight back were spontaneous, unorganized and solitary. While the lynching of Joe Pullen is considered as one of the "most dynamic" cases of resistance, the event was typical in many respects: a dispute between a tenant and landlord in December resulting in ad hoc defense by the victim alone.

While there is little agreement as to the details of lynching, both contemporary records and recent scholarly research are consistent as to the broad outlines. Joe Pullen, a tenant farmer, disputed a debt owed to his landlord W. T. Saunders. Pullen shot and killed Saunders and then, after collecting an additional firearm and ammunition, fled into the countryside. A mob formed and pursued Pullen, intending to capture him. Pullen managed to kill and wound several members of the mob before he was himself killed. The details surrounding the nature of the disagreement, who fired first, the size of the mob and the particulars of the manhunt, vary significantly.

...
Wikipedia