The site of one of the darkest moments in our area's history is getting a marker documenting the event.

Leonard Woods was lynched in Wise County, Virginia in 1927.

"Leonard Woods was a miner, a Black man originally from Pittsburgh," said Tom Costa, Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at UVA Wise. "He was working in one of the mines near Jenkins, Kentucky. On a Sunday night, very late, just before midnight, three white men, Hershall Deaton and two of his friends were coming in a car over the mountain allegedly on their way to work the next morning. The story goes Leonard Woods accompanied by two Black women flagged them down asking them for a ride and Deaton got angry shoved them off the car. Woods allegedly pulled on a gun on Deaton and shot him."

In 1927, being accused of such a crime was a virtual death sentence for a Black man in the South.

"After the funeral, a group of whites, some from Coeburn some from Norton, broke Woods out of jail," said Costa.

Back then lynchings were usually done at the scene of the alleged crime, but after push back from local law enforcement in Jenkins, Kentucky, the mob brought woods across the state line in Virginia.

"The local sheriff in Jenkins said you can't do that here, the mining companies would get upset, a lot of Black miners work for these companies," said Costa. "So they took him across the state line. They hanged him, they shot him and then they cut his body down and burned it."

The lynching caught the attention of then Virginia Gov. Harry F. Byrd and eventually lead to the nation’s first law defining lynching as a state crime.

"There were some doubts about what happened on the mountain that night," said Costa. "The NAACP investigated."

But after the initial publicity, the story faded into history, until the University of Virginia's College at Wise asked Costa to start looking into lynchings in the county.

"I'm a historian and I teach about Jim Crow and I'd never heard of them either," said Costa.

Their research led to a request for a state historical marker in Pound so that this dark part of our area's history is not forgotten.

"So many of them have been forgotten in their communities or marginalized," said Dr. Jennifer R. Loux, Highway Marker Program Manager for Virginia's Department of Historic Resources. "So putting a marker out there helps brings these events back into the light."

The new marker will be unveiled Saturday at the site of the lynching, just outside of Pound. The public ceremony begins at 11 a.m.