"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
–Ida B. Wells
In a recent gathering of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis (LSP), we said an official goodbye to a good friend. Mary and her husband Stephen are moving away very soon to embark on the next chapter of their common life. At the end of our gathering, each one of us took turns truth-telling, speaking to Mary about what she has truly meant to us. Then, she returned the favor. It was a deeply rich, meaningful, bittersweet time.
84 Years – The Seasons of Who We Are
By John Ashworth
Discover the inspiring story of Ida B. Wells, an investigative journalist and civil rights activist who fought against racial injustice during Reconstruction and used her voice to expose the truth, igniting a powerful movement for change.
Friends of Truth
It is strange that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it. This crusade is much more important than the anti-lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.
~ Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
Immersion Experience TWK Annual Conference June 20, 2023 Fred Morton
Written to a high school History teacher...
I do not know if my thoughts will add value to your instruction, but I really appreciate the
opportunity to express them with someone inside the classroom, thank you so much for
the opportunity.
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.
Click here for Story Corps Interview Page
In April, 1939, a young African American man was accused of stealing merchandise from a store in Tennessee. Shortly afterward, he was found dead in a nearby river.
That man’s name was Jessie Lee Bond. His death certificate says he drowned accidentally, but his family always maintained that after an argument with white shop owners, he was lynched — shot, castrated, and thrown in a river.
The Memphis Landmarks Commission endorsed an application Thursday, Dec. 22, to make the 1917 Ell Persons lynching site part of the National Register of Historic Places.
The Tennessee Historical Commission will consider the designation next month, followed by the National Park Service.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — The site of a brutal mob attack more than a century ago in Memphis could become the first lynching site in the country listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a local historian says.
It was a case that echoed all the way to Washington and New York City.
By Laura Faith Kebede, Special to the Daily Memphian
Published: October 13, 2022 4:00 AM CT
Inspired by the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act of 2008, WKNO takes a look at the role of local journalists in reporting on racial inequality in American society, with video segments exploring two of the recently reexamined historic cases from West Tennessee, the 1940 murder of NAACP member and voting registration activist Elbert Williams in Brownsville TN, and the 1968 death of teenager Larry Payne during the events of the Sanitation Workers Strike. The panel discussion features veteran Memphis journalists Karanja Ajanaku, Otis Sanford, Wendi C.
MEMPHIS, TN - The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis (LSP) Board President, Rich Watkins, will testify before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands at a legislative hearing on H. R. 7912. This hearing is scheduled to be held on July 14, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. ET in 1324 Longworth House Office Building and via WebEx. The hearing will be live-streamed on the Committee’s YouTube page.
The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis and the family of Jesse Lee Bond are working to put up a historical marker at the site where two men lynched Bond in 1939...
May 10, 2022 — The University of Memphis’ Institute for Public Service Reporting (IPSR) is launching a new investigative journalism project to explore racial injustice in the Mid-South and is hiring a veteran journalist to head it up.
