Thread by @socialistdogmom

“placing this marker in this particular landscape does something important,” says dr andrea douglas in her opening remarks at a ceremony dedicating a plaque to john henry james, a man lynched in albemarle county july 12, 1898.

one year ago today, on the 120th anniversary of his murder, members of a pilgrimage from charlottesville arrived in montgomery, alabama to place a jar of soil from the lynching site at the equal justice initiate museum.

c-ville.com/complicit-pilg…

for too long we have built monuments to a one-sided, watered down version of history. with this memorial, “we confront that, we say there is a better way, a more holistic way of telling that story,” says kira boone, the deputy director of community education at EJI.

what a community chooses to memorialize is a reflection of that community’s values, boone says.
“you can’t have reconciliation, you can’t have repair, you can’t have healing, without truth telling.”

mayor nikuyah walker asks the crowd for a moment of silence to honor the moment that we’re in.
“this is the easiest part of the work - the memorial,” she says. “we don’t see the legacy that wasn’t able to be continued” because a man was murdered.

mayor walker says there’s a reason we don’t have a written account of john henry james’ family looking for him when he disappeared. there was no one for them to turn to. law enforcement was there when he was lynched.

“putting up a memorial for someone is a great step,” but how does a community heal from knowing that someone’s life was taken from them by white men in this area. “have we changed? that is the question.”

mayor walker: “we all know as we sit here that the answer is no.”
how do we create a community that is truly equitable? how do we create a community where we don’t have to talk about equity because it’s obvious? “if we have to put the words in bold, we’re not living it.”

mayor walker: “i want you to think about a community where a man could be lynched with law enforcement present” and the fear that travels through generations, how that fear lives in the DNA of black people today.

mayor walker tells the assembled crowd that as they do this work, do it with the understanding that there is a debt that has not been paid.

albemarle county supervisor diantha mckeel (who used her vote on the jail board to support continued cooperation with ICE) now addresses the crowd about racial reconciliation.

mckeel says james’ right to an equitable trial was not overlooked, it was explicitly denied. she says this was complicity of government with injustice. i wonder if she sees the irony in her words as she engages in the same complicity.

a rabbi, a reverend, and a pastor read maya angelou’s “on the pulse of morning”

charlottesville has a long history of violent white mobs that predates the 2017 summer of hate, says @Jalane_Schmidt

“we look forward to a time when mr james will not have to share space with monuments to his oppressors,” dr jalane schmidt says.
the plaque stands outside the albemarle county courthouse, across the courtyard from a statue of a confederate soldier.

dr schmidt accounts, in horrible detail, the events leading up to the lynching of john henry james. the coroner found more than 30 bullet holes in the hanged man’s body.

though the lynch mob was unmasked and the chief of police was present when the lynch mob seized james, no one was ever charged for his murder.

the final speaker thanks the crowd for coming and says we don’t want to leave thinking about james’ death, but celebrating his life. before he was brutally murdered by a lynch mob, he brought joy to many as an ice cream salesman. she encourages the crowd to take a popsicle.

we need to take down the monuments to white supremacy this plaque shares the park with, but this is a start.

while the lynching itself took place on land that today belongs to farmington country club, placing this marker outside the albemarle county courthouse, across from monuments to the confederacy, is a strong reminder that there is still much work to be done.