of the Cairo population, they were frequently discriminated against in jobs and housing. Race relations were strained in 1900. The state passed an anti-lynching law in 1905. On the night of November 11, 1909, two men were lynched. The first was William James, an African American accused of the murder of Anna Pelly, a young white woman killed three days earlier, although there was no physical or circumstantial evidence connecting him to the crime. The second man lynched was Henry Salzner, a white man who had allegedly murdered his white wife the previous August. James was accused of killing Pelly by choking her to death in an alley with pieces of a flour sack on the evening of November 8, 1909. Pelly's body was discovered the next morning. Police believed that James was large enough to have committed the crime, especially as there were rumors of an accomplice. James was placed in police custody on Tuesday, where he remained until Wednesday evening. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. As word of the crime spread, whites in Cairo demanded an immediate trial of James, but the case was delayed by the court. The white townspeople grew infuriated by the delay in a speedy trial, and the threat of mob violence quickly developed. On November 10, Sheriff Frank E. Davis arranged to take James out of the city jail on an Illinois Central train to avoid mob violence. But the increasingly large mob in Cairo learned of this and seized another train, racing to catch up with the sheriff and James. Sheriff Davis' attempt to save James from the mob proved futile when the mob intercepted Davis and his prisoner. The mob returned James to Cairo and took him to the intersection of Commercial Avenue and Eighth Street. Approximately 10,000 people had gathered for a spectacle lynching as the leaders attempted to hang James from large steel arches that spanned the intersection. The rope broke and James survived the hanging, but members of the armed mob shot him more than 500 times, killing him. The mob dragged James' body to the scene of Pelly's murder. His head was cut from his body and displayed on a pole that was stuck into the ground, and his body was burned. Hundreds of townspeople conducted a search for the alleged accomplice, Arthur Alexander. Unable to locate him and still bloodthirsty, they entered the