Walker, Zachariah (P-1911)

Philip Matthew Stinson Sr.

On August 13, 1911, a mob of allegedly more than 1,000 people lynched a Black man, Zachariah Walker, just outside of the borough of Coatesville, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Walker had been accused of killing a security guard, who was also a former local police officer, at a Coatesville steel mill 2 days earlier. Although more than a dozen people were indicted for Walker's murder, none was convicted at trial. The Walker lynching and resulting acquittals of his killers led to widespread criticism of the local community and outrage across the country, resulting in the involvement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in antilynching efforts in the decades ahead. On the evening of Saturday, August 12, 1911, Walker got drunk and fired two shots from a revolver over the heads of two Polish workers from Worth Brothers Steel Works. The noise attracted the attention of ...

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