Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking, they change laws, change society, or even

earn the label, Crime of the Century. But the stories that made headlines and decades past

aren't necessarily remembered today.

I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author, and in each episode of this show, I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.

This is Crimes of the Centuries.

Around daybreak on July 29, 1910, three black teenagers were walking home through the Piney Woods of East Texas. They'd spent the night at a grandmother's house, and now they were headed out to feed their livestock. In the dim light,

they spotted a half dozen white men ahead. Two of the teens even recognized them. Armed white

men in the woods weren't an unusual sight in East Texas back then.

Hunting was common and guns were everywhere. But these men weren't out hunting deer.

Without a word, they raised their shotguns and opened fire on 18-year-old's Luskali and

Cleve Larkin and 15-year-old Charlie Wilson. Larkin fell where he stood.

Wilson, hit the thigh and ankle, somehow managed to run, adrenaline and terror propelling him

through the dense lob-lally and long-leaf pines through sticky marshes until he and Holly reached cover.

Over the next 48 hours, every black resident of Slocum, Texas would try to outrun the hate.

Not all of them would succeed.

The blame for the massacre would take a variety of guises.

Maybe it was about money, maybe about employment, maybe it was about

the outcome of a boxing match. But it was always told as if it were the fault of some black man or

black family. The local newspapers would report it was a race riot that the black population had

in some way overreached, and, having gotten

above their station, pushed the white population to respond. But this was not a race war. Hell, even the

sheriff who came in to quell the disturbance would tell the big city newspapers immediately after he'd

...