"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
–Ida B. Wells
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.
A new Downtown historical marker will "tell the whole story" about Nathan Bedford Forrest and the antebellum slave trade in Memphis.
The new marker, sponsored by Calvary Episcopal Church, Rhodes College and the National Park Service, will be unveiled and dedicated April 4.
It will be erected near the corner of Adams Avenue and B.B. King Boulevard, on the church's property and near a 1955 historical marker for "Forrest's Early Home."
(Memphis, Tenn.)—Calvary Episcopal Church, in collaboration with Rhodes College, will unveil and dedicate a new historic marker at the site of the antebellum slave mart operated by Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tenn. The marker, to be dedicated on April 4, 2018, will be placed near the corner of Adams Ave. and B.B. King in Downtown Memphis.
Echoes of Lynchings in Quiet Photos
The scenes in many of Oliver Clasper’s photographs are utterly mundane, bereft of any dazzling camera tricks or rich colors. They are quiet, almost too much so. But once you learn what happened in these scenes from small towns, big cities or verdant fields, their almost unemotional first impression gives way to horror: Someone was lynched there.
What is the role of black and white leadership in the Lynching Sites Project?
New Executive Director of LSP...
We are excited to announce that John Ashworth will take on the role as Executive Director of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis. John previously served as Project Manager for the May 21, 2017 centennial commemoration of the lynching of Ell Persons.
John Ashworth has served as Chairman of the Elbert Williams Memorial Committee in Brownsville, Tennessee. Mr. Elbert Williams was a lynching victim in 1940 as a result of his leadership in organizing a chapter of the NAACP in Brownsville (Haywood County).
Listen to Christie Taylor's recent (Jan 14, 2018) WRBO radio interview with our own John Ashworth and Margaret Vandiver, for an account of the work of the Lynching Sites Project and how it connects with the issues of race in 2018. It is about a half hour in length but begins with 3-5 minutes of music - feel free to skip ahead to the interview.
Active LSP member, Dr. Almella Starks-Umoja, was interviewed to write this book!
In preparing to write my story, I interviewed the pastor’s daughter, Dr. Almella Starks Umoja. She was a teenager in 1968. Almella was an eyewitness.
