It is the only lynching in New York state since the Civil War, a story that Michael Worden grew up hearing about from his grandma.
It happened 130 years ago on the streets of his hometown, Port Jervis, a then-bustling industrial city in the North.
An African American man named Robert Lewis was accused of sexual assault against a white woman, severely beaten, and hanged twice on a tree by a mob.
Lewis was never tried, nor convicted, of the alleged crime.
Michael Worden stands in downtown Port Jervis, N.Y., on Nov. 23, 2022. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)
Worden calls it one of the most shameful events of the city, and through four years of research, he developed the most thorough account of the lynching to date—a journey that took him to the courthouse, graveyard, and the minds of people at the time….