Henry “Peg” Gilbert and Mae Henry Davenport Gilbert 

Memorial Service and Rededication of Gravestone Markers

March 10, 2018

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Henry “Peg” Gilbert was a prosperous 42-year-old with a 100 acre farm in Troup County. He and his wife, Mae Henry Gilbert, had four daughters. Gilbert was a deacon at Union Springs Baptist church in Harris County and was known as a self-made, independent leader who supported African American self-sufficiency. That was not something most white Harris Countians admired at the time.

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He was arrested by Harris County police Chief W.H. Buchanan for questioning on suspicion he had harbored a man who’d fatally shot a white Harris County farmer.

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On May 23, 1947, four days after his arrest, Henry Gilbert was found dead at the Harris County jail in the city of Hamilton. Chief Buchanan claimed to have shot him in self-defense. The mortician testified that bones all over Gilbert’s body had been crushed and he’d suffered five gunshot wounds. Gilbert’s wife said that when she kissed her husband in his coffin it was like “kissing a sack full of little, bitty bones.”

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The deeply traumatized family was forced to sell and leave their beautiful farm and lives in Troup County. Their land was purchased at below market rates by a member of the family of the white farmer whose murder investigation brought about the murder of Mr. Gilbert. His children were, for a time, divided among relatives. The only daughter still living has never been able to return to Harris County.

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The FBI and Department of Justice made a cursory investigation of Mr. Gilbert’s death and took the word of Sheriff M.D. Hadley that the police chief acted in self-defense.

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The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project of Northeastern University Law School has investigated this case and concluded that it was a lynching. Many unanswered questions remain as to the identities and motives of others involved.

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Gilbert Historical Marker

The EJI joins with communities across the nation to install narrative historical markers at the sites of racial terror lynchings. This is an example. Communities such as ours engage in a series of conversations and activities on racial injustice and an essay contest for high school students. When the contest is completed, a memorial such as this will be placed on a site near the old depot in Hamilton. A sacred memorial park will be built on the site.

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“The monument placement isn’t meaningful unless it’s surrounded by increased consciousness.” – Bryan Stevenson

 

Click here to read newspaper accounts of Henry Gilbert’s death.

Click here to view a Georgia Public Broadcasting interview with Sheila Moss Brown and Karen Branan