Skip to main content
Home

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth on them."
–Ida B. Wells

  • About
    • History
    • Board of Directors
    • Origins of Lynching Culture
    • Supporters
    • Contact
  • Lynching Sites
  • News
    • Events
    • LSP Blog
  • Resources
    • Social Justice Organizations
  • Contributions
    • Donate online
  • Email Newsletter
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Search

How Soil Acts as a Living Witness to Racial Violence by Leanna First-Arai

"The Equal Justice Initiative is using soil to document the lynchings of more than 4,400 African-descended people between 1877 and 1950.

In Memphis, Tennessee, more than 500 people came together in May 2017 to mark the centennial of the death of Ell Persons. The Black woodcutter was lynched alongside the Wolf River a century earlier after being blamed for the death of a 16-year-old White girl named Antoinette Rappel. John Ashworth is executive director of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, the community group that organized Persons’ memorial. Ashworth says he has been involved in seven or eight soil ceremonies like this one, resulting in jars of earth sent to join the others in Montgomery, as if filled with remains.

After scooping soil from the banks of the Wolf River, community members, including descendants of Persons and Rappel, gathered around the pile of earth. “We try to allow for every person participating to come up and put a pinch of soil in [the jar] so they, in fact, have a part in the ceremony,” he says. “That in and of itself brings about a certain amount of feeling or connection.” It also aids in communication, in changing the narrative, Ashworth says.

“We did it in Alamo, we did it in Brownsville, we’ve done it a couple times in Memphis … it’s a very cathartic process.” Ashworth says using soil has made the work of interpersonal and historical reconciliation a little bit easier, and in the process given rise to “a renewed sense of each other’s humanity.”

Yes! Magazine
Source date: 
Feb 27 2019 (all day)
Share:
  • twitter
  • facebook
  • tumblr
  • linkedin
  • pocket
  • email
  • print

Ell Persons

May 22 1917 (all day)

A Brief Version of the Lynching of Ell Persons on May 22, 1917

In May, 1917 the decapitated body of a 16 year old white girl, named Antoinette Rappel, a student at...

Upcoming Events

Virtual Book Tour with Michelle Duster

03/08/2021 - 5:00pm

Research material

News Scimitar, 5/3/1917 (Photos of Antoinette Rappal)

Police Report, 5/4/1917

Indictment, 5/8/1917

News Scimitar, 5/8/1917

Request for Troops, 5/17/1917

Commercial Appeal, 5/17/1917

Evening Star, 5/22/1917

Hickory Daily Record, 5/22/1917

The Seattle Star, 5/22/1917

The Tacoma Times, 5/22/1917

News Scimitar, 5/22/1917 (Lynch bulletins)

Commercial Appeal, 5/22/1917

Commercial Appeal, 5/23/1917

Columbus Commercial, 5/24/1917

Covington Leader, 5/24/1917

Putnam County Herald, 5/24/1917

Ell Persons Death Certificate, 5/24/1917

McNairy County Independent, 5/25/1917

NAACP Supplement to the Crisis, July 1917

News

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

The Daily Memphian

How the South Memorializes — and Forgets — Its History of Lynching

TIME

GROWING DOWN INTO THE GOODNESS OF OUR GRIEF Grief in the Life of the Lynching Sites Project

Pilgrimage Reflections by Tom Thrailkill

LSP Memphis by Tom Haley

Thomas Haley Vimeo

Opinion | Lynching memorial honors victims' bodies and souls

The Commercial Appeal
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/lens/echoes-of-lynchings-in-quiet-photos.html

Echoes of Lynchings in Quiet Photos

The New York Times

Statue Removal-Letter to the Editor

"The Way To Make Things Right" by Rabbi Micah Greenstein

Responsible for Remembering

Watch Love Work
http://facingtoday.facinghistory.org/author/michele-whitney

How The Legacy of Ell Persons Lives On With Michele Whitney

Facing History and Ourselves
https://youtu.be/j3vgxRLR2uQ

Ell Persons, May 21st Commemoration Wolf River

Ell Persons, May 21st Commemoration Wolf River

Michele Whitney Remarks on May 21st

The lynching of Ell Persons finds a lasting imprint on the Memphis NAACP chapter

High Ground News

Memphis Students Unite Their Community 100 Years After A Lynching

Stacey Perlman, Facing Today

Seeking repentance for a 100-year-old lynching

Andrea Morales, MLK50

Ceremony Of Remembrance Commemorates Brutal Lynching One Hundred Years Ago

Brad Broders, Local Memphis

Present Day Issues Surface in Centennial of Persons Lynching

Bill Dries, Memphis Daily News

Ell Persons lynching remembered 100 years later

Ron Maxey, Commercial Appeal
(Photo: Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

Descendants of 1917 lynching's 2 victims gather for truth, healing

David Waters, Commercial Appeal
Content © Copyright The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis and respective authors
Donate | Contact Us | Email list | Facebook | Twitter | Web Development