Some Memphians are trying to make sure a dark chapter of our history is not forgotten.
There are about 200 historical markers in Memphis, but only one of them commemorates a lynching: the People's Grocery marker at Walker Avenue and Mississippi Boulevard.
Activists are trying to change that.
Lynching Sites Project said each of the more than 30 recorded lynchings that happened in Shelby County since the Civil War should be recognized and remembered.
"Because they were not acknowledged, it was like their lives did not matter," Iris Love Scott said. "But in fact, these people were important, and they led to where we are today."
Elle Persons is one of the people Scott says has been forgotten. Persons was accused of killing a 16-year-old white woman. After being accused, he was lynched along the Wolf River while 5,000 people watched.
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