Frances Thompson

Biography

Frances Thompson was born into slavery in Alabama around 1840 and later moved to Memphis, Tennessee, following the Civil War. Living openly as a woman, she worked as a washerwoman and became part of the city’s tight-knit Black community.

On the night of May 1, 1866, white mobs swept through Black neighborhoods during what became known as the Memphis Massacre. Thompson and her housemate Lucy Smith were brutally attacked and sexually assaulted in their home. In 1871, Thompson traveled to Washington, D.C., where she courageously testified before a congressional committee investigating the massacre. Her sworn statement offered harrowing detail of the violence inflicted on Black Memphians and was instrumental in shaping federal understanding of racial terror in the South.

Thompson continued to live in Memphis, but her visibility made her a target. In July 1876, local police arrested her on charges of “cross-dressing.” Newspapers gleefully reported the arrest, misgendering her and using it to discredit Black political claims during Reconstruction. Forced to submit to a medical examination and fined, Thompson’s health deteriorated rapidly after her release. She died on November 28, 1876.

Despite efforts by contemporaries to weaponize her identity against Black civil-rights gains, Frances Thompson’s life and testimony powerfully illuminate the entwined struggles against racism and transphobia in nineteenth-century America. Her courageous voice before Congress remains a landmark moment in United States history.