Black Indiana Man Feared Lynching By White Mob During 4th Of July Attack

A Black man from Indiana says he feared for his life during a heated encounter with a group of white men captured in a viral video from this Fourth of July weekend. 

Vauhxx Rush Booker shared the video (see below) on Facebook and recounted the story. He explained that on Saturday while walking with a friend, he was confronted by an inebriated man wearing a Confederate flag hat who told them they were on private property. Booker and a friend had taken a path on private property they were unaware they didn’t have permission to cross. As he and his friend were leaving, according to Booker, they encountered several more angry white men and the men then attacked them from behind. 

“The five were able to easily overwhelm me and got me to the ground and dragged me pinning my body against a tree as they began pounding on my head and ripped off some of my hair, with several of them still on top of my body holding me down,” Booker wrote in the post. He even alleged one of the perpetrators jumped on his neck. The men can also be heard shouting racist comments at someone behind the camera, referring to them as a “nappy-head b****.”

Numerous passersby who heard the commotion tried to help as the alleged attackers pinned Booker against a tree and told them, “we’re going to break his arms,” while instructing their pals to “get a noose,” Booker wrote. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources responded to the scene according to Booker, but they “refused to arrest any of these individuals.”

Booker, who is traumatized by the incident, shared his story out of concern for the safety of other Black people should they cross the path’s of the perpetrators again. “I don’t want to recount this, but I was almost the victim of an attempted lynching,” Booker wrote on Facebook. “I don’t want this to have happened to me or anyone."

[via]