"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
–Ida B. Wells
The United States Senate’s three black members introduced a bill on Friday that would make lynching a federal hate crime.
The move came more than two weeks after a similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress from 1882 to 1986. None were approved.
I am often emotionally pulled in many directions as I do the work of remembrance of the victims of our nation’s tortured domestic terrorism campaign from the end of the Civil War until about 1960. Along the way, all the people I work with in this effort leave a lasting impression that gets buried in my subconscious. Until that memory gets jarred in some significant way that memory remains among all the rest without much thought.
The March Resumes
June 11, 2018
The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis partners with a growing network of organizations and congregations of faith in order to acknowledge our shared history of racial violence and our ongoing resolve for racial justice and racial healing. One such organization is the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee, which has commissioned the creation of a sculptured monument by Chicago artist, Richard Hunt, to honor the life of Ida B. Wells. Ida B.
The March Continues
May 29, 2018
A March Completed
May 16, 2018
My reflections of the Montgomery journey. I/we went on Saturday. Our entry was 1:30pm. The museum was informative. For me how long this has been going on. For me like it was something that so called white people were entitled to do. Then the children that are locked up for life. These are children. Who does that to children and why? Museum left me without any and I mean no good feelings about so called white people. So the memorial wasn’t t much better. Walked through the first garden trying to prepare myself for what I was sure was going to effect me in some way.
By Vanessa Gregory
The April 29th issue of the New York Times has an excellent article by Vanessa Gregory, a writer based in Oxford, Mississippi. The article, "A Lynching's Long Shadow" is about the important story of Elwood Higginbotham; a story from our area that had national implication in the larger tragedy of lynching.
One LSP pilgrim’s reflections on the EJI Memorial and Museum in Montgomery
I was lucky to travel to Montgomery for the opening of the Legacy Museum and the Memorial for Peace and Justice. I was able to attend 4 of the panel discussions, the opening ceremony and the Concert for Peace and Justice. It was overwhelming and incredibly enriching.
On Thursday, April 26, 2018, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama. It was the vision of Attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). The grand opening was attended by thousands from all over the United States and several foreign countries. The Legacy Museum is the culmination of years of research into America’s history of racial inequality and continued exploitation of Africans brought here in chains against their will.
by McKinley Doty
SATURDAY: Vigil in Arlington to Honor Victim of 1939 Lynching
ARLINGTON, Tenn. - Alumni of Arlington High School, in partnership with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, will host a public prayer service and candlelight vigil to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the lynching of Jesse Lee Bond on Saturday, April 28, 2018 in Depot Square at 7:30pm.
by John Ashworth
In 1917, James Weldon Johnson, best known as the author of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," visited the site where Ell Persons was burned to death beside the Wolf River, just outside Memphis.
While viewing the residue of the burned body, Johnson remarked that "the truth flashed over me that in large measure the race question involves the saving of black America’s body and white America’s soul."
[Episcopal News Service] A previously little-known piece of history just outside the doors of Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, is being brought to light as the church prepares to dedicate a historical marker at the pre-Civil War site of the Forrest Slave Mart.
