The current reports of black voter suppression in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida have made me revisit two late 19th Century South Carolina voter suppression riots.  These riots had tragic and devastating impacts on my Old Ninety Six District, South Carolina kinsmen and women: The Parksville Riot (1884) and The Phoenix Riot (1889), which would see scores of extended family lynched, indiscriminately murdered, or run out the state.

I have already written about the Parksville Riot, and how that black voter suppression-fuelled riot impacted on my Yeldell cousins. In this article, I will discuss how the Phoenix Riot led to the brutal death of one cousin, Essex Harrison, and the senseless killing of another cousin, Eliza Goode.

The Phoenix election riot, occurred on 8 November 1898, near Greenwood County, South Carolina. A group of local Democrats attempted to stop a Republican election official from taking the affidavits of African Americans who had been denied the right to vote. The race-based riot was the outcome of increasing tensions not only between the Republican and Democratic parties, but also White Americans and the area's black population.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2018/12/09/the-1898-phoenix-riot-essex-harrison-eliza-goode-and-south-carolinas-black-voter-suppression/