It’s one thing to know about lynching, and quite another to get to know the victims and communities affected by racial violence. 

Lynching Sites Project’s new podcast, “The Red Record,” seeks to introduce listeners to the cases we know about in Shelby County and put them in context of what was going on in Memphis at the time. These horrific crimes did not happen in a vacuum. Racist actions and policies created the environment for lynching to happen, and the community trauma had long-lasting effects we still feel today — whether we realize it or not. 

The people who suffered these things—Mary and Hayes Turner, Ell Persons, Jesse Lee Bond, and far, far too many others—were Americans. They were born here. They were citizens. They, and their survivors, were entitled to the same due process under law that you or I would expect. And they did not receive it. The acts they suffered were criminal, and justice has yet to be done. In many cases, the criminal nature of the acts hasn’t even been formally acknowledged.

A Life of Truth

One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually true, and whether the opinions we go over every day have any foundation or are things we repeat to ourselves simply so that we will continue to play the game. It can be quite disorienting to find that a story we have relied on is not only not true - it actually never was true.  Not now, not ever. ~ David Whyte

On October 10, 1905, a human life was taken from chronicles of time. Robbed of divine purpose by a cowardly pack.  A soul of a Man, anchor of a family, providence of a community, and The potential of Our Nation has been forgotten.  No remnants of his impact. No grave, No glory, No gesture of Justice from the body politic...The Sun continued to rise and set amidst the decaying lifeless body placed in the ground…. A seed crying out for justice refuses to sprout..The deafening  tyranny of terror has hardened the topsoil of Our hearts….And We All remain buried...

“So I went South. Because I was afraid to go South.’ Baldwin, forever the blues man, ran toward the trouble.”
~ Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, p. 48

On behalf of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, we write to share our profound distress over the totally unwarranted, unnecessary, and ​theatrical ​murder of George Floyd. We stand with our brothers and sisters protesting in the streets over this egregious, outrageous murder.

We write to join the growing multitude of voices across this country urging that justice be served and police officers arrested ​and tried for murder​, and we commend the Mayor of Minneapolis for coming out in support of the arrest of the officers who acted with such wanton disregard for human life.