Robert Truett
July 15, 1919· Unknown, Louise, Mississippi
- People
- Robert Truett
- Outcome
- unknown
On July 15, 1919, Robert Truett, an 18-year-old African American World War I veteran, was lynched by hanging in Louise, Mississippi. He was accused of making an "indecent proposal" to a white woman. Truett's killing occurred during the "Red Summer" of 1919, a period of widespread racial violence against African Americans across the United States, with particular targeting of Black veterans returning from military service. Truett was one of at least ten documented Black veterans lynched in 1919 alone. The lynching of Black veterans served a specific purpose in maintaining white supremacy: African Americans who had served their country with honor and returned expecting to be treated as full citizens posed a direct threat to the racial hierarchy used to justify Jim Crow-era segregation and oppression. As Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi had warned on August 16, 1917, the use of Black soldiers in the military was viewed by many white Southerners as a threat, not a virtue, and he feared the return of Black veterans would "inevitably lead to disaster" for the established racial order. Mississippi recorded the highest number of lynchings of any state during this era, with 581 documented between 1882 and 1968. The accusations used to justify these killings—such as the vague charge of an "indecent proposal"—were often pretexts for eliminating Black men who were perceived as threats to white supremacy simply by their existence as veterans who had fought for democracy abroad.