June 2, 1892: Robert Lewis Killed By White Mob in New York

On June 2, 1892, in Port Jervis, New York, Robert Lewis, a local Black hotel bus driver, was brutally beaten and hanged from a tree by a crowd of nearly 2,000 people after being accused of assaulting Lena McMahon, a local white woman. No one was held accountable for his murder.

Portrait of Robert Lewis, June 9, 1892. Source: Public domain

This was one of many racially motivated lynchings across the nation post-Reconstruction, as Jim Crow laws and white supremacist sentiments sought to replace Black advancements made following the Civil War.

In the TIME article “A Lynching in New York 130 Years Ago Shows That the North Isn’t Immune to Racial Hatred,” Philip Dray writes,

There had been a sharp rise in the reported number of Black people killed in this manner: 74 in 1885; 94 in 1889; 113 in 1891. The year 1892 would see the greatest number, 161, almost one every other day.

Source: The Historical Marker Database

In 2022, on East Main Street in Port Jervis, a historical marker was erected by the Friends of Robert Lewis & Minisink Valley Historical Society (MVHS).

According to the Historical Marker Database,

Soil taken from this site is part of a collection held by the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. This marker memorializing Robert Lewis is believed to be the first of its kind to publicly acknowledge a heinous historical injustice suffered by an African American in New York State.