Cleo Wright
Cleo Wright was a 26-year-old African-American cotton mill worker who was lynched in Sikeston, Missouri during the afternoon of January 25, 1942. Earlier, he was accused of attacking a white woman with a knife and attempting to sexually assault her, and subsequently resisted arrest by stabbing a police officer in the face. After being shot four times and bludgeoned by police, Wright was refused sufficient medical care on the basis of his race. He then was taken from his holding cell in the Sikeston City Hall by a white mob, dragged by a car to the Sunset Addition black neighborhood, and burned alive in view of two church congregations. The lynching of Wright was the first lynching to occur after the United States' entry to World War II, and led to the first ever federal investigation into a civil rights case.
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