June 2, 1896 – Oroville, California: A Large Mob Lynched a Chinese Murder Suspect

[AI-generated placeholder. Deeper narrative coming soon.] On June 2, 1896, in Oroville, California, a mob of white townspeople stormed the jail and lynched an unnamed Chinese man who had been arrested for murder. The vigilantes – reportedly several dozen strong – overwhelmed the jailers and hanged the prisoner without trial. Local newspapers at the time provided only cursory coverage, often referring to the victim simply as “the lynched Chinaman” and giving no personal details. As expected, no one in the mob faced charges. This lynching demonstrated that even by the late 1890s, anti-Chinese mobs in California were still willing to take the law into their own hands.