jul 7, 1893 - C.J. Miller, lynched as a scapegoat, in Bardwell, Kentucky, July 7, 1893

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A crowd of thousands lynched C.J. Miller, for allegedly killing two young white girls, despite ample evidence of his innocence. While a search party of eager whites looking for an excuse to kill scoured the state of Kentucky, C.J. Miller inconveniently was arrested for stealing a ride on a freight train going out of Sikeston, Mo. Sikeston authorities immediately jumped to conclusions and telegraphed Bardwell officials that they might have got their man. Suspicion immediately fell on Mr. Miller and led to his death despite plenty of evidence pointing to a different culprit.

Statements from Mr. Miller’s wife and from law enforcement witnesses indicated that Mr. Miller was not even in Kentucky on the date the girls were killed, and multiple eyewitnesses identified the girls’ killer as a white man. Even the girls’ father was unconvinced of Mr. Miller’s guilt and wanted more proof. Only one person implicated Mr. Miller, but he originally told police that the person he saw was a white man—as did other witnesses. The witness who implicated Mr. Miller changed his statement only after the county sheriff threatened to charge him as an accomplice if he did not do so. This same sheriff then handed Mr. Miller over to a crowd of thousands of white citizens to be lynched.

A mob of thousands was determined to ensure that Mr. Miller’s death was brutal. One suggested not to use a rope for the hanging because that was a "white man's death". So instead they used a log-chain, nearly a hundred feet in length, weighing over one hundred pounds, and placed it around Miller's neck and body. He was led and dragged through the streets of the town, followed by thousands of people. He fainted from exhaustion several times, and was then supported to a platform to where he would be hanged. His last words were: "My name is C.J. Miller. I am from Springfield, Ill... I am here among you today, looked upon as one of the most brutal men before the people. I stand here surrounded by men who are excited, men who are not willing to let the law take its course, and as far as the crime is concerned, I have committed no crime, and certainly no crime gross enough to deprive me of my life and liberty to walk upon the green earth." After he was told what the mob was going to do to him he replied: "Burning and torture here lasts but a little while, but if I die with a lie on my soul, I shall be tortured forever. I am innocent." Those two statements were his last recorded words. The chain was hooked around his neck, and then he was raised several feet from the ground and then released falling down. The first fall broke his neck, and he was raised and fell a second time. Numberless shots were fired into his body, from a crowd of men who were heavily armed, and had been drinking all day.

Miller's body was hung and exposed for several hours during which several photographs of him were taken, and his toes, fingers, and ears were cut off as souvenirs. His body was then burned in a public fire, and in a few moments there was nothing left of C.J. Miller but a few bones and ashes. Many citizens believed he was innocent, but they didn't stand up for him and stood by as the lynching occurred.

Following Miller’s brutal lynching, armed white residents began organizing to force Black residents to leave the area; law enforcement arrested no one for participating in Mr. Miller’s lynching and made no effort to investigate a white suspect in the girls’ killings, but continued to indiscriminately arrest local Black people on unfounded charges.

Miller's lynching is one of the many examples of how black men were used as scapegoats for crimes that white men committed. The white officials who implicated Miller as the perpetrator of the crime knew that he was most likely innocent but someone had to answer for the death of those two girls and they had no problem with it being an innocent black man. Not only were officials and witnesses falsely implicating Afro-Americans, but even white criminals knew that they could just pin their crimes on the most unpopular and detested race because they know that the black man is barely ever believed or even given a fair trial.

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