By Gina Peebles, Assistant County Manager – Chief of Staff, Alachua County
In April 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) opened a public museum and memorial in Montgomery, AL for the 4,400+ African Americans who were lynched between 1877 and 1950. In Florida alone, 317 documented lynchings occurred (https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore). While 18 are recorded on the EJI website for Alachua County, our Historical Commission found evidence of more than 50 local lynchings (https://truth.alachuacounty.us/Timeline).
The six-acre EJI memorial has 800 six-foot permanent monuments etched with the names of lynching victims. Local governments can engage in a citizen led “Community Remembrance Project” to request their memorial marker be transferred to them for local display. Therefore, on June 26, 2018, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners approved a motion initiating a community led Truth and Reconciliation process including:
- setting an example for how local government can recall its role in our history of racial injustice;
- researching its history of any government actions or inactions that deserve to be remembered;
- co-sponsoring one or more symposiums or conferences on “truth and reconciliation;”
- facilitating town hall meetings where people can tell their story and react to historical findings;
- assisting in public reading projects;
- creating an online archive of documents, images and recordings, related to this project;
- inviting others to participate in a similar process for their organization;
- formally requesting that the memorial marker of Alachua County victims of lynching be transferred to County government:
- As soon as the EJI requirements have been met;
- Determined through a public process where and how the monument will be displayed;
- Having raised sufficient public and private funds to properly display and interpret the monument;
- Explore how those names not on the EJI Memorial will be properly memorialized in Alachua County and Montgomery, AL;
- Explore the possibility of collecting jars of soil from or near the lynching sites as well as providing some to the display in Montgomery, AL; and
- Explore the possibility of road signs near the sites that would direct those interested in the matter to the information.
- requesting all County advisory boards to consider their role, if any, in this process; and
- analyzing the public and private resources needed to complete these tasks.
Alachua County sent three staff (our Historical Commission liaison, Equal Opportunity Manager and web content developer) to travel to Montgomery. While there, they visited the Lynching Memorial; the Rosa Parks Marker and Museum; First Baptist Church (Martin Luther King’s Church); City Hall; and St. Jude. This trip helped them to gain an understanding and appreciation of the Board’s direction and inspired the content now readily available on our Alachua County Truth and Reconciliation landing page (available by clicking: Here.)
A group of interested citizens, known as the Community Remembrance Project Committee, stepped forward and created research; soil collection event; historic marker; school board essay contest; community education; and memorial quilt subcommittees. They helped coordinate logistics for a Memorial and Candle Lighting Service for Alachua County’s Victims of Lynching held in February 2020. A 5-minute video of the event is available by clicking: Here. Two original poems from Alachua County’s Poet Laureate, E. Stanley Richardson were written for the event, “Century Oak” and “An Elegy for Black Bodies” available by clicking: Here.
The Committee continues to meet monthly and is currently coordinating soil collection ceremonies on known lynching sites (with willing property owners) with the intent of keeping one jar of soil for local display and sending one jar to EJI for display in Montgomery.
Even after EJI authorizes Alachua County to bring our local marker home, we will continue to engage our community in public conversations shedding a light on our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.
For more information on the Equal Justice Initiative, please visit them online at: https://eji.org/.
