Reparations for Corbin, Kentucky race riot of 1919

Corbin, Kentucky race riot of 1919 was a race riot in 1919 in which a white mob forced nearly all the town’s 200 black residents onto a freight train out of town, and a sundown town policy until the late 20th century.

Corbin Expulsion

On October 29, 1919, two men robbed and stabbed A.F. Thompson before escaping without him getting a good look. Thompson was able to stumble to a nearby house and get help. Word quickly spread about the crime and that the attackers were two black men. On October 31, 1919, an enraged and armed white mob made up of hundreds of Corbin’s townspeople organized and went house-to-house rounding up black residents. When they felt that all of the African-Americans of the town had been gathered, the mob marched a group of approximately 200 men, women, and children to the train station, and herded them onto cramped railcars. The train departed with its human cargo and were sent south to the town Knoxville. “They swore at us and said: ‘By God we are going to run all Negroes out of this town tonight,’” said longtime black Corbin resident John Turner in a signed affidavit about the incident.