‘Mob justice’ focus of GCHS presentation

The Garland County Historical Society will present the program “Lynching and Political Authority in Arkansas” at noon Tuesday at the Garland County Library. The public is welcome to attend.

Guy Lancaster will discuss how lynching, long viewed as the exercise of mob justice outside the bounds of the law, actually served as an extension of political authority in Arkansas, a news release said.

While drawing upon examples from around the state, Lancaster will highlight two cases of lynching that occurred in Hot Springs: Will Norman, in 1913, and Gilbert Harris, in 1922.

Lancaster is the author of “Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 18831924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality,” and editor of “Bullets and Fire: Lynching and Authority in Arkansas, 1840-1950” and “The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas: A Century of Atrocity and Resistance, 1819-1919.”

His books have received awards from the Arkansas Historical Association and the Booker Worthen Literary Prize. He is the editor of The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, an online resource created by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

Submitted photo DARK PAST: A 1915 photograph, looking south on Ouachita Avenue, with Como Square on the left. Como Square, the site of two lynchings in Hot Springs history, will be mentioned in the program “Lynching and Political Authority in Arkansas” on Tuesday.