On January 25, 1942, Cleo Wright, a 26-year-old Black man, was taken from a jail cell in Sikeston, Missouri, by a white mob, dragged through the streets behind a car, and set on fire near a Black church while Sunday services were taking place. Wright had been accused of attacking
a white woman and a police officer. After being arrested and seriously wounded, he was taken to the local jail. As word of his arrest spread, an angry crowd gathered outside City Hall, broke into the jail, and seized him. Following the lynching, his burned body was left on public display for hours as crowds drove past to see it.
Wright’s murder prompted the first federal attempt to prosecute a lynch mob under federal civil rights laws. Despite investigations by local and federal authorities, no one was ever convicted.
This clip comes from Silence in Sikeston, a 2024 documentary produced by KFF Health News and Retro Report. Through eyewitness accounts, historical research, and interviews with local residents, the film examines Wright’s lynching, the 2020 police killing of Denzel Taylor, and the lasting effects of racial violence on Sikeston’s Black community.
In this excerpt, witnesses and historians recount the events surrounding Wright’s lynching, including the crowds that gathered to witness the violence and the atmosphere in the town that day.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeIYjceulGN/
https://retroreport.org/video/the-lasting-impact-of-a-lynching-2/