On December 11, 1922, George Gay was lynched in Streetman, a town that straddles the border of Freestone and Navarro counties in Texas. He allegedly assaulted a young girl. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, it was the 60th of 61 lynchings during 1922 in the United States.
Background
Tensions in the region were very high as a number of Black men had been lynched in the area. On May 6, 1922, away from Streetman, three Black men were lynched in Kirvin, Texas, for allegedly murdering 17-year-old Eula Ausley. In Waco, Texas, away from Streetman, Jesse Thomas was lynched on May 26, 1922. All were killed with little to no evidence.
In Streetman, the daughter of Mrs. W.S. Grayson, 20-year-old Miss Florine Grayson, was a teacher at Birdston school. On Monday, December 11, 1922, someone attacked her at 6:45 AM when they threw a sack over her head and stuffed her mouth with a cloth (some reports say mouth stuffed with cotton). She was able to free herself and yell loudly enough to quickly beckon for help.
George Gay was a 25-year-old Black man that lived from the Grayson house. At 10:45 AM, he was seized upon and seemed to have another piece of cloth that matched the cloth used as a gag in the attack. He was brought before Florine Grayson, but she couldn't positively identify him as the attacker. Bloodhounds were asked to be brought in from Huntsville in order to find the attacker.
Lynching
Word had spread throughout the region, and a crowd some 2,000 strong had gathered demanding justice. Sensing that the situation was getting out of his control, Sheriff Horace Mayo of Freestone County tried to move George Gay to a safer location. Before Gay could be moved, an estimated 250 vehicles blocked the sheriff, and the mob seized George Gay. At 2:50 PM, George Gay was chained to a tree and shot over 300 times.
Aftermath A second man, Roger Payne, was implicated in the attack. A separate Black man was almost lynched when he was mistaken by the mob as Payne. That separate man was able to prove that he was not Payne and was released.
National memorial
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama, displays 805 hanging steel rectangles, each representing the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place and, for each county, the names of those lynched. The memorial organizers hope that communities, like Freestone or Navarro where George Gay was lynched, will take their slab and install it in their own community.
Bibliography Notes
References - Total pages: 668