In the late summer of 1934, the quiet mill town of Honea Path, South Carolina, became the setting for a tragic chapter in American labor history, culminating in the death of Thomas Yarborough, a 53-year-old male weaver and union organizer. The incident, which would come to be known as the Chiquola Mill Massacre or 'Bloody Thursday,' unfolded against the backdrop of the Great Depression and a massive, nationwide textile workers' strike.
Workers were protesting harsh conditions and low wages, and tensions in Honea Path had reached a boiling point.
On the morning of September 6, 1934, a group of approximately 300 striking workers, including Yarborough, gathered to picket outside the Chiquola textile mill. They were met by an armed force of local townspeople and non-striking workers who had been deputized by the mill's superintendent and the town's mayor, Dan Beacham. Strikebreakers were positioned inside the mill, some armed with rifles and sticks, and a World War I-era machine gun was placed on the roof. As the picketers attempted to block non-union workers from entering the mill, a scuffle broke out.
What began as a tense standoff quickly erupted into violence when Beacham gave the order to fire upon the crowd of striking workers. Gunfire erupted from the mill, sending the picketers fleeing in terror. In the chaos that ensued, seven men were fatally shot, and dozens more were wounded. An eyewitness to the massacre later recounted seeing Thomas Yarborough shot repeatedly in the back as he tried to get people to join the union. A coroner's report would later confirm that all of the deceased had been shot in the back while trying to escape the hail of bullets.
In the aftermath of the violence, the community was deeply divided. Local churches, subsidized by the mill, refused to hold funerals for the slain workers, forcing the United Textile Workers to organize a service in an open field, which was attended by an estimated 10,000 people. Although eleven strikebreakers were charged with murder in connection with the shootings, they were ultimately acquitted by a local magistrate. In a further miscarriage of justice, when two eyewitnesses testified that Dan Beacham had given the order to fire, he had them arrested and charged with perjury. No one was ever convicted for the deaths at the Chiquola Mill, and the event was largely suppressed from public discussion in Honea Path for decades.
