The Wrong Walk Home

In the small town of Lexington, SC, secrets, lies and racism came together to take away a young Black man’s freedom and ultimately, his life. Willie Leaphart, 17, was walking home from church one night on Jan. 26, 1890, when he was arrested and accused of attacking a white woman at one of Lexington’s finest homes. Despite being a teenager, Willie must have known that a Black man facing a charge like that in the Jim Crow South faced almost certain death. The attorney George Graham, reluctantly appointed by the court to defend Willie, uncovered facts that undercut the accusations of Willie’s guilt and suggested a darker reason for why he was accused of the crime in the first place and why he couldn’t be allowed to make it out of Lexington’s jail, where he was lynched by a mob of 100 men. For 130 years, the crime was forgotten. But when the evidence is rediscovered in 2021 in the course of River Bluff High School research project about lynching in the county, it creates a chance for Willie’s name to finally be cleared. But can South Carolina in the 21st century correct a 19th century injustice? Will the reason for his death finally come to the forefront?