Aiken County · Marker 02-86
Lynching of the Lowman Family
Chesterfield St. S and Park Ave. SE, across from Aiken County Judicial Center, Aiken
Front inscription
In Oct. 1926, Bertha Lowman Cheatham (b.1892) and Damon (b.1902) and Clarence Lowman (b.1911) were taken from the Aiken Co. Jail one block south and lynched. The two siblings and cousin had been convicted of the 1925 murder of Sheriff Henry Howard, who died during a liquor raid on the Lowman home. Also killed were matriarch Annie Lowman and Bertha’s unborn child. The raid found no liquor and was ruled improper by the S.C. Supreme Court.
Reverse inscription
The Lowmans were at the jail in 1926 awaiting new trials. On Oct. 7 a judge acquitted Damon but he was rearrested and again jailed. A group of men, identified by prisoners as law enforcement officers, removed the Lowmans from their cells between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. on Oct. 8, drove them to a pine thicket 2 mi. NE, and shot them to death. National NAACP activist Walter White came to Aiken to investigate the murders. No one was ever charged.