In Memphis, A Movement To Mark Lynching Sites

[struggle4progress]

... This is an initiative to find and mark all the places of lynchings in the United States. Unfortunately in Tennessee, right in our own county, there are 21 of them that happened between 1882 and 1930. So at this first prayer meeting we’re going to be reading the names of the 21 known victims of lynching. As Ida B. Wells said, the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. We’re hoping for more truth, a deeper honesty but grounded in this newer sense of humility – we don’t have the answers but we are part of the ongoing legacy of racial terror in our country ...

... We acknowledge the fact that in that time in the ’30s and ’40s when there was this lost cause movement of putting up all kinds of memorials to the Confederacy, that this was the way it was then. So rather than perhaps tearing it down, what we’re saying is let’s write another one that just states ‘<Nathan B.> Forrest was a partner in Forrest and Maples Slave Dealers whose offices were nearby and by the time he was in the Confederacy he was one of the richest man in the South, and that on a certain date he led Confederate cavalry troops that captured nearby Fort Pillow and massacred over 300 African-American Union soldiers.’ And we feel like the education of what actually happened, and how it’s still happening with a different face and different name is how our hearts will be open to do this differently ...

http://kuow.org/post/memphis-movement-mark-lynching-sites

[arcane1]

1. Off-topic: James Loewen's excellent "Lies Across America" is all about those old biased monuments

It's a fascinating history in and of itself!

[wildeyed]

2. This is a good idea.

Tell history as it really was. Maybe those people who think the Confederate flag means heritage not hate would buy a clue if they knew the real history.