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Wathal G. Wynn was admitted to practice by the Arkansas supreme court on September 25, 1871. He lived in Lake Village, Chicot County. He obtained an LL.B. degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1871. He died on December 15, 1871, following a fight with three white men over the future of local business development in Lake Village. His death led to a mob of black men rioting and, overpowering the white sheriff, taking three men accused of Wynn’s murder from the jail and shooting them to death.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299,303 n7, 307 n39, 313 n78, 338 (2000); AR Supreme Court Admission Records; Class List, Howard University School of Law, Library Archives; see series of articles in Arkansas Daily Gazette, dtd 12/21-24/1871, 12/28/1871, 1/3/1872;