MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - As Black History Month comes to a close, Action News 5 looked back on one of the darkest events in Shelby County--the 1917 lynching of Ell Persons, a Black man murdered for a crime historians say he likely did not commit.
The very spot where Persons was killed could make history again, as the first lynching site in the country to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The brutal murder of 15-year-old Antoinette Rappell would have easily been considered the crime of the century at the time. The white teen was on her way to school when she was found decapitated in a wooded area near the Wolf River bridge.
A Black wood cutter who lived nearby became the prime suspect.
Action News 5
Source date:
Feb 28 2023 (all day)
