Lation Scott

Scott was tortured, mutilated and burned alive by a mob on Sunday, December 2, 1917 in downtown Dyersburg.

Scott registered for the World War I draft on June 5, 1917, and described his occupation as farming.

Scott was seeking work in Oakfield, Tennessee, and the foreman at the job recognized him.

[3] The police held Scott overnight and word of his arrest quickly spread to the neighboring counties.

David Moss, manager of the local Phoenix Cotton Oil Mill, acted as judge and told Scott to stand up.

[3] Next, Scott was tortured for over three hours and burned alive before a crowd estimated at 7,000–8,000 people.

[4] The Memphis Press-Scimitar reported that long before the mob reached the city the town was "choked with humanity".

[3] A reporter for the Nashville Tennessean said that every housetop and awning in the vicinity of the pyre was covered with spectators.

[3] Reports of the torture and burning have said Scott was taken to an empty lot and chained to a buggy axle which was pounded into the ground.

[2] Next, they laid him out on the ground and used red-hot smoothing irons to burn the skin off his back and sides.

[2] An NAACP investigation found that the identity of the people who led the mob were well known throughout Dyer County but nobody was ever punished for the lynching of Scott.

One man compared said of the lynching, "It was the biggest thing since the Ringling Brothers Circus came to town."

"[3] Vandiver speculates, "Perhaps the horror of what they had done did have some effect on the white residents of the area [after Scott's death] there were no further lynchings in Dyer County.