Qualla: Chiquola Mill Massacre https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Chiquola Mill Massacre https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre Chiquola Mill Massacre: Introduction https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. For sixty years, the people of Honea Path, South Carolina kept a secret. On September 6, 1934, six textile workers were shot in the back and killed outside the Chiquola Mill, a seventh was mortally wounded, and thirty more fell with gunshot wounds. The man who gave the order to fire was Dan Beacham -- simultaneously the town's mayor, its magistrate, and the superintendent of the very mill the workers were striking against. He walked free. The dead were buried. And Honea Path went silent about what had happened on the day locals would eventually call Bloody Thursday.

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Chiquola Mill Massacre: Mill Town, Company Town https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. James David Hammett opened the Chiquola Mill in 1903 for the production of coarse cotton sheeting, and the small upstate South Carolina town of Honea Path reshaped itself around the looms. Small farmers from across the region, squeezed off their land by tightened credit, migrated...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-mill-town-company-town.mp3 0:06 2 full Chiquola Mill Massacre: Roosevelt's Promise, Industry's Betrayal https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932 changed the calculus. For the first time, a president openly encouraged workers to join unions, and the United Textile Workers surged from 15,000 members in February 1932 to 270,000 by 1934, expanding rapidly into the Southern states. The Nat...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-roosevelts-promise-industrys-betrayal.mp3 0:06 3 full Chiquola Mill Massacre: Six Bullets in the Back https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The picket line formed outside the Chiquola Mill on the morning of September 6, 1934, part of the massive national textile strike. Dan Beacham was not going to tolerate it. As mayor, he controlled the town's law enforcement. As magistrate, he controlled its courts. As mill superi...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-six-bullets-in-the-back.mp3 0:06 4 full Chiquola Mill Massacre: Justice Buried Alongside the Dead https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. What followed the killings was a masterwork of suppression. At the coroner's inquest, eleven strikebreakers were charged with murder. But Beacham, serving as the local magistrate, ensured they were acquitted. When two eyewitnesses testified that he had personally given the order ...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-justice-buried-alongside-the-dead.mp3 0:06 5 full Chiquola Mill Massacre: Breaking the Silence https://qualla.com/chiquola-mill-massacre/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The conspiracy of silence held for sixty years. Families of the dead and the survivors passed the story down in whispers, but publicly Honea Path did not speak of Bloody Thursday. That changed in 1994 with the publication of the documentary 'The Uprising of '34,' which brought th...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/j/7/chiquola-mill-massacre-wp/dnj7-chiquola-mill-massacre-breaking-the-silence.mp3 0:06 6 full