As I will be vacating the Board of Lynching Sites Project of Memphis July 1, this is my valedictory statement about work with this very significant organization in our community.

LYNCHING SITES PROJECT MEMPHIS:  A GOOD AND HOLY WORK

by Fred Morton 

April 26, 2020

Dear Lynching Sites Project (LSP) Community:

I don’t know about you, but I’m learning how to stay safe and healthy by keeping my distance. “Social distancing” is our new watchword in these trying, COVID-19 times.

And yet, as LSP, community is who we are.  As we learn how to “shelter in place” (another new phrase), you and I can take comfort - shelter - in the fact that our work will continue.

Black History 105 Years Later: Do we still need Black History Month?

By John Ashworth, Executive Director, LSP

The ritual of soil collection is an integral part of our work of remembering and lamenting the great horrors of racial violence committed throughout our land and in this very county.

Lives were viciously taken without due process or legal consideration of any kind. It was a form of racial violence calculated to discount and trivialize persons of color even to the extent of desecrating the remains of the victims and denying to kin and friend the decency of burial and sacred remembrance. These victims' lives were snatched from public memory as if they never lived.

On Saturday, October 19, 2019, the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis dedicated two markers to African American victims lynched in Shelby County, Tennessee. One was killed in 1851 and the other in 1869.  I have long contended that there is a straight line between the events of yesteryear and the way African Americans are treated and perceived by very powerful and influential voices today. 

The name of the 1851 victim is unknown, but for purposes of this article, I refer to him as George. The 1869 victim was Wash Henley. 

Lynching Sites Project memorializes two men killed in Shelby County

by Jared Boyd

The Daily Memphian 

A couple say farewell to Memphis after 'grueling but healing' work on the Lynching Sites Project

by David Waters

The Daily Memphian 

About 50 family, friends and fans gathered at Caritas Village one day last week to say goodbye to Rev. Randall Mullins and his wife, Sharon Pavelda. They are moving to the Seattle area.

Randall Mullins and Sharon Pavelda, founding members of The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, were honored to attend the swearing-in ceremony today of the first female County Public defender, our very own Phyllis Aluko. She also made history as the first African American in the office here in Shelby County!