In Memory of Willis Jackson: A Lynching, a Sermon, and a Southern Reckoning
Willis Jackson, Dr. John F. Vines, and the Long Road to Remembering
This coming Friday, October 10, 2025 marks the anniversary of one of the darkest moments in South Carolina’s history…a moment many still don’t know, and too many still refuse to name.
On October 11, 1911, a 17-year-old Black teenager named Willis Jackson was lynched by a mob of over 5,000 people in Honea Path, South Carolina. His name is barely remembered. His story is not taught in our schools. His death was not counted in any official investigation.
But Willis Jackson was a human being. He lived. He worked. He was accused—without trial—of a crime, and before the sun could rise again, he was ripped from police custody, mutilated, and hanged upside down from a telephone pole, his fingers cut off and passed around like trophies.
And no one was ever held accountable.
Except for one man—a white Baptist preacher—who dared to speak.
The Mob and the Machine
To understand what happened to Willis Jackson, we must name the men who orchestrated it.
Joshua Whitner Ashley, a South Carolina State Representative, led the mob. His son, Joe Ashley, was the editor of The Anderson Intelligencer and bragged about “going out to see the fun.” The Governor of South Carolina, Coleman L. Blease, later wrote to Ashley:
“You did just what I told you. You need not worry about the results.”
This was not justice. This was power.
A grotesque performance of white supremacy carried out in the open—by elected officials, lawmen, and citizens.
And for decades, it worked. The papers praised the mob. The courts looked away. The town buried the memory.
The Preacher Who Wouldn’t Stay Silent
But five days later on Sunday, October 15th, 1911, something happened that no one expected. In the heart of Anderson, South Carolina, at First Baptist Church, Rev. Dr. John F. Vines stood in the pulpit and condemned the lynching.
“The people who mainly compose lynching mobs talk much of defending virtue,” he said, “but are not themselves distinguished for virtue.”
Vines didn’t stop there. He called out Ashley by name. He denounced the hypocrisy of a community that preached morality while cheering violence. And he did it not from a distance…but in front of a congregation that likely included men who had watched, or even participated in the lynching.
His sermon was printed not in The Anderson Intelligencer, but in a newspaper in Sumter. Local media ignored it. They knew better than to upset the Ashleys or challenge Governor Blease.
And yet, word spread. According to the Yorkville Enquirer, Vines’ sermon became “the principal subject of conversation in Anderson” that week.
Grace in the Shadow of the Gallows
What makes Vines’ stand even more remarkable is what happened just days earlier.
On October 6, 1911, Samuel Hyde, a white man sentenced to death for murder, was baptized by Dr. Vines inside First Baptist Church. Vines had petitioned the judge for permission and walked with Hyde spiritually until the day of his execution.
Governor Blease refused clemency. Hyde was electrocuted in 1912, becoming one of the first white men in South Carolina to face the electric chair. Vines was there when it happened.
Two men.
One Black, one white.
Both condemned by the culture.
Both embraced…one in word, one in water…by a preacher who believed in mercy over vengeance.
Erased and Remembered
For over a century, Rev. Vines’ courage was forgotten.
He left Anderson in 1915, moving on to Roanoke, Kansas City, and finally Nashville. He led thousands to Christ, baptized hundreds, and never stopped preaching. But here in Anderson, his most prophetic moment…calling out the moral rot of lynching…was left out of the official histories.
It took a group of student filmmakers from Anderson University to uncover it.
In a class project called Finding Dr. Vines, we dug into church archives, century-old newspapers, and dusty university records. We found his name on yearbooks, his sermons in forgotten clippings, his courage in footnotes.
And when we paired his voice with the stories of people like Josh Phillips (a local pastor and descendant of Joshua Ashley)we realized this wasn’t just history.
This was our inheritance.
And our responsibility.
Why This Still Matters
Willis Jackson never had a trial.
He never had a chance.
He never got to tell his side of the story.
But Rev. Vines spoke for him.
And now, so must we.
When churches are silent in the face of injustice, we become accomplices. When educators and politicians whitewash the past, we rob our communities of healing. When stories like Willis Jackson’s are erased, we ensure they’ll happen again.
But if we remember…if we tell the truth, name the names, and honor the dead…then maybe, just maybe, there’s hope.
Hope that moral courage can still speak louder than mob violence.
Hope that prophetic voices like Vines’ will no longer be forgotten.
Hope that communities like ours can find redemption—not by pretending the past didn’t happen—but by telling it well.
Sources & Archives:
Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America
The Yorkville Enquirer, Oct. 20, 1911
The State, Oct. 11, 1911
Dr. Stuart Sprague, Dr. Lindsay Privette, Anderson University
Finding Willis Jackson & Finding Dr. Vines student research and interviews