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In the summer of 1922, a mob of unionized miners at a strip mine in southern Illinois went on a bloody rampage,
incensed by the hiring of out-of-state immigrant workers by the Southern Illinois Coal Company. The mob,
which numbered roughly 200 and contained women and children, apprehended twenty-two mine workers -
both strikebreakers and mine management - and killed them in the countryside surrounding the city of Herrin.
The dead men were left on display in town, where they were taunted and spat upon by the public before finally
being buried in a potter's field at the Herrin Cemetery. A subsequent inquest and two trials found no one to
blame except the coal company itself. Of the six men indicted for murder, all were ultimately acquitted.
An excellent account of the events in and around Herrin, Illinois, can be found in the book,
Bloody Williamson ,
by Paul M. Angle, published by Prairie State Books. A brief summary of the Herrin Massacre can also be found on
Wikipedia.
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