Mack Charles Parker

Mack Charles Parker, 23, an Army veteran and truck driver, was lynched three days before he was scheduled to stand trial on charges of raping a white woman — charges he denied in a letter written from jail, and which rested on an identification the accuser herself said she could not be certain of. Late on April 24, 1959, eight to ten hooded men broke into the Pearl River County jail in Poplarville, reportedly aided by a jailer who provided the keys, and dragged Parker from his cell. He was beaten, driven away, and shot; his body was recovered from the Pearl River on May 4, 1959. An FBI investigation identified more than twenty men involved, several of whom confessed and named other participants, and the FBI turned a full dossier over to Mississippi officials. An all-white county grand jury declined to indict, as did a subsequent federal grand jury, by a single vote. No one was ever charged. Historian Howard Smead has called it "the last classic lynching in America."

Poplarville, MS · Pearl River County

• 1959: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity, background, and the April 24–25, 1959 date and circumstances, per contemporaneous FBI reporting and public records.
• The FBI's investigation identified more than twenty participants through witness statements and confessions, though no state or federal grand jury returned an indictment.

• No one was ever charged, tried, or convicted.
• Parker's guilt in the underlying rape accusation was never established in court; his accuser could not confirm his identity with certainty.

• PBS FRONTLINE Un(re)solved — case summary
• Mississippi Today — case retrospective
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs