Appalachian History
What happened at Pound Gap
On the night of November 29–30, 1927, a white mob seized Leonard Woods, a Black coal miner from Jenkins, Kentucky, from the Letcher County jail in Whitesburg. They drove him to Pound Gap on the Kentucky–Virginia line and killed him there. The Commonwealth’s historical marker at the site states the core facts plainly: a mob “numbering in the hundreds” broke into the jail, brought Woods to the gap, and “hanged, shot, and burned him.” No one was ever arrested.
Woods had been jailed after the killing of Herschel Deaton, a white coal-company foreman from Coeburn, Virginia. Contemporary press across the region followed the case, often with competing narratives. White papers tended to center Deaton’s social standing and the allegation that Woods ambushed his car. Black newspapers reported the killing and the lynching within a broader pattern of racial violence.
From Whitesburg to the line
According to contemporaneous accounts, word spread that a large motorcade was organizing on both sides of the state line. After the mob forced the Whitesburg jail, Woods was carried by caravan toward Fleming and then up the new U.S. 23 road to the gap. Regional coverage in December described the break-in, the size of the crowd, and the use of the road’s ceremonial platform at Pound Gap, which had been built weeks earlier for the highway’s opening celebration.
How local editors told it in real time
The strongest contemporaneous reporting and editorials came from the mountain press itself. Bruce Crawford’s Crawford’s Weekly in Norton, Virginia, covered the killing and denounced the lynching in December 1927, returning to the subject at month’s end. The surviving December issues show extensive local commentary during the weeks the story unfolded.
Across the ridge, the Clinch Valley News of Tazewell ran an editorial on February 3, 1928, calibrating the event against other sensational crimes then in the headlines and addressing the question of mob “justice.” It is an unusually frank mountain-press comparison piece from the winter after Woods’s death.
Black Virginia press also followed the case. The Richmond Planet, a prominent Black weekly with a long anti-lynching editorial tradition, carried coverage and commentary across its late-December 1927 and January 1928 issues. Its browsable run preserves the context of how Black readers in Virginia encountered the news of Woods and of the push for state reform.
Law and aftermath in Virginia
No one faced charges for the lynching at Pound Gap. The impunity was a catalyst. Journalists such as Bruce Crawford in the mountains and Louis I. Jaffé of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot pressed Richmond to act. In March 1928, Virginia enacted the nation’s first statewide statute defining lynching as a crime of murder, aimed at taking prosecution out of purely local hands. The law remains on the books today. “Every lynching shall be deemed murder.”
Remembering Leonard Woods
In recent years community groups in Wise County and Letcher County have worked to document and memorialize the victims of racial terror. In 2021, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources approved and dedicated the “Leonard Woods Lynched” highway marker at Pound Gap. The unveiling was paired with soil-collection ceremonies for the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project, part of an ongoing, locally led effort to confront and teach this history.
Local papers have continued to report on the marker and the remembrance work, helping residents place the events of 1927 inside a wider Appalachian and American story.
Why this happened here
Appalachia was not outside the American pattern of racial terror. Virginia’s lynching history shows the practice was used to control and intimidate, and it often followed allegations of violent crime. Civic historians have worked to define terms clearly and to show how mob killings functioned socially and politically, not simply as explosions of outrage. The Pound Gap killing in 1927 fits that pattern and also shows how a single, highly publicized event helped spur a change in state law.
Sources and further reading
Crawford’s Weekly (Norton, VA), contemporaneous coverage and editorials: Dec. 3, 1927, p. 4; Dec. 17, 1927, p. 4; Dec. 31, 1927, p. 3. Virginia Chronicle. Virginia Chronicle+2Virginia Chronicle+2
Clinch Valley News (Tazewell, VA), editorial comparing the Woods lynching to other cases, Feb. 3, 1928, p. 2. Virginia Chronicle. Virginia Chronicle
Richmond Planet (Richmond, VA; Black weekly), late Dec. 1927 and Jan. 1928 issues. Virginia Chronicle browse and issue index. Virginia Chronicle
Front Royal Record, editorial response to the lynching, Dec. 6, 1927, p. 2. Virginia Chronicle. Virginia Chronicle
Virginia state historical marker, “Leonard Woods Lynched,” full text and dedication release, Virginia DHR, Oct. 13, 2021. dhr.virginia.gov
Code of Virginia § 18.2-40, “Lynching deemed murder,” and § 18.2-39, definition. Virginia Law+1
Alexander S. Leidholdt, “ ‘Never Thot This Could Happen in the South!’: The Anti-Lynching Advocacy of Appalachian Newspaper Editor Bruce Crawford,” Appalachian Journal 38 (2011), 198–232. (JSTOR excerpt and journal index.) JSTOR+1
James Madison University, Racial Terror: Lynching in Virginia, victim page for Leonard Woods; and Lynching Marker Program dossier. JMU WordPress Sites+1
Encyclopedia Virginia, “Anti-Lynching Law of 1928”; “Lynching in Virginia.” Encyclopedia Virginia+1
The Mountain Eagle (Whitesburg, KY), reporting on the Pound Gap marker and local remembrance. The Mountain Eagle+1
Marker unveiling program and soil-collection ceremonies, Wise County Community Remembrance Project and partners. YouTube+2YouTube+2
HMdb summary of the “Leonard Woods Lynched” marker. HMDB