"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth on them."
–Ida B. Wells
by John Ashworth
In 1917, James Weldon Johnson, best known as the author of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," visited the site where Ell Persons was burned to death beside the Wolf River, just outside Memphis.
While viewing the residue of the burned body, Johnson remarked that "the truth flashed over me that in large measure the race question involves the saving of black America’s body and white America’s soul."
A new Downtown historical marker will "tell the whole story" about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the antebellum slave trade in Memphis.
The new marker, sponsored by Calvary Episcopal Church, Rhodes College and the National Park Service, will be unveiled and dedicated April 4.
It will be erected near the corner of Adams Avenue and B.B. King Boulevard, on the church's property and near a 1955 historical marker for "Forrest's Early Home."
New Historic Marker to be Unveiled at Site of Forrest Slav
Echoes of Lynchings in Quiet Photos
The scenes in many of Oliver Clasper’s photographs are utterly mundane, bereft of any dazzling camera tricks or rich colors. They are quiet, almost too much so. But once you learn what happened in these scenes from small towns, big cities or verdant fields, their almost unemotional first impression gives way to horror: Someone was lynched there.
What is the role of black and white leadership in the Lynching Sites Project?
New Executive Director of LSP...
We are excited to announce that John Ashworth will take on the role as Executive Director of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis. John previously served as Project Manager for the May 21, 2017 centennial commemoration of the lynching of Ell Persons.
John Ashworth has served as Chairman of the Elbert Williams Memorial Committee in Brownsville, Tennessee. Mr. Elbert Williams was a lynching victim in 1940 as a result of his leadership in organizing a chapter of the NAACP in Brownsville (Haywood County).
Listen to Christie Taylor's recent (Jan 14, 2018) WBRO radio interview with our own John Ashworth and Margaret Vandiver, for an account of the work of the Lynching Sites Project and how it connects with the issues of race in 2018. It is about a half hour in length but begins with 3-5 minutes of music - feel free to skip ahead to the interview.
Active LSP member, Dr. Almella Starks-Umoja, was interviewed to write this book!
In preparing to write my story, I interviewed the pastor’s daughter, Dr. Almella Starks Umoja. She was a teenager in 1968. Almella was an eyewitness.
The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis enthusiastically supports the removal of the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis. Our deep thanks goes out to TakeEmDown901, the Mayor, city legal team, the City Council and many others. Our mission is to locate and memorialize all the sites of lynchings that took place in Shelby County.
“The Way To Make Things Right”
Few Memphians know this history, so for the past three months students in my Historical Methods class at Rhodes College have been researching and writing about slavery and the slave trade in Memphis.
On April 26, 2018, EJI will unveil two new national institutions designed to deepen and amplify the national conversation about racial justice.
The Legacy Museum tells the little-known true story of slavery in America and its legacy. Located on the site of a former warehouse where black people were enslaved, this narrative museum uses interactive media, sculpture, film, and exhibits to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world's largest prison system.
Servente’s other award was for “An Accidental Drowning” in the MLK50 Hometowner category, a special competition for films with racial and social justice themes created in recognition of the upcoming observance of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s trips to Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers, which ended in the civil rights leader's assassination at the Lorraine Motel.
Productions include a documentary called “An Accidental Drowning,” which looks at the brutal 1939 lynching of Jesse Lee Bond in nearby Arlington, directed by Matteo Servente.
EJI Partners with Community to Honor Lynching Victims in Chattanooga, Tenn.
In this soil, there is the sweat of the enslaved. In the soil there is the blood of victims of racial violence and lynching. There are tears in the soil from all those who labored under the indignation and humiliation of segregation. But in the soil there is also the opportunity for new life, a chance to grow something hopeful and healing for the future.
- EJI Director Bryan Stevenson
Representative Johnnie Turner, whose comments from the Boxley Soil collection in Crockett County are shown in this video, will be speaking to the Lynching Sites Project at the Monday Meeting on October 23, 2017. The meetings take place at First Baptist Church on East Parkway, and are from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. We hope you will join us!
A friend of mine decided to begin a group to talk about racism in his church and modeled it after Alcoholics Anonymous/Twelve-Step groups in which members begin meetings by saying “my name is ____ and I am an alcoholic.”
