It means the story is unverified in the specific way that most stories of remarkable events that occurred in small towns in the American South in the early twentieth century are unverified — because nobody was systematically recording the experiences of Black communities in rural South Carolina in 1915, and because the local newspapers of the era frequently did not cover the events of Black lives with any consistency or completeness.

The question of what actually happened on that summer morning in Blackville is genuinely open.

What is documented is the remarkable life that followed — and the even more remarkable legend that grew around it.

Blackville, South Carolina, 1915

To understand Essie Dunbar’s story, it helps to understand the world she was born into and the world in which the alleged events of 1915 took place.

Blackville is a small town in Barnwell County, South Carolina, situated in the central part of the state — not far from Augusta, Georgia, to the west, and not far from Columbia, the state capital, to the north.