LAKE CITY, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s congressional delegation wants a post office named to honor a 19th-century postmaster who was lynched because he was black and refused to resign.
The Post and Courier reports that the entire delegation co-sponsored a bill to name Lake City’s post office after Frazier B. Baker.
Baker was a schoolmaster in Effingham when President William McKinley named him Lake City’s postmaster in 1897.
An intimidation campaign began almost immediately. His house was set ablaze and he and his baby daughter were shot and killed inside it in February 1898. Baker’s wife and their other five children barely escaped.
Democratic U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of Columbia calls the incident “a fault in need of repair.”
His bill has passed the House. He expects it to pass the Senate.