A memorial was held last Saturday morning at the Chatham County Industrial and Agricultural Fairgrounds to mourn the victims of lynchings in the area. Tracy Lovett, a district liaison for Congressman David Price, spoke at the memorial service to a crowd of more than a hundred people.

“Today we are bringing dignity and peace to Harriet Finch, Jerry Finch, Lee Tyson, John Pattishall, and Henry Jones,” she said. “These histories, especially those of devastating racist violence, are tantamount to telling a story of this country.”

The Finches, Tyson and Pattishall were lynched in 1885, and Jones in 1899.

The Equal Justice Initiative and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL, have been advocating for memorials and public recognition of the victims of lynching. They say, “Only by telling the truth about the age of racial terror and collectively reflecting on this period and its legacy can we hope that our present day conversations about race, exclusion, and inequality – and any policies designed to address these issues – will be accurate, thoughtful, and informed.”

“We’re talking about history where things didn’t go right,” said Chatham County Sheriff Mike Roberson, who delivered the opening remarks of the ceremony. “The right things weren’t done, and we need to make sure that the community understands that we want to do the right thing.

“It’s a different time from back then, but at the same time, we have some of the same issues,” he continued. “And I think we have to be real with people, and we have to let people know that they can trust us.”

Since 2015, The Equal Justice Initiative has been working with local communities across the country to commemorate and recognize the traumatic era of racial terror by collecting soil from lynching sites. This was perhaps the most powerful moment in a morning full of powerful moments: community members scooped soil collected from the sites into large glass jars etched with the names of the victims. Soil was for each victim was places in two jars. One jar will go to Montgomery, Alabama, and one jar will in Chatham County.

“This is the second time in Chatham County that we are recognizing and honoring victims of lynching,” said Karen Howard, chair of the Chatham County Commissioners. “[The Chatham County Remembrance Coalition] has been working with the NAACP to create a plaque that will identify the six victims [including one honored in a ceremony last September] with their dates of birth and death dates, and that will be put in a public space in downtown Pittsboro.”

The goal of the project is to have the plaque in place, likely near the courthouse and the Chatham County Government Annex, by September.

The Rev. Evan Harris gave the ceremony’s closing remarks.

“Thank you for this experience of community today,” he said. “Thank you for the tears. Thank you for breaking our heart, and all of our hearts, so that we might have the love and outpouring of love necessary to stitch this community back together again, every day of our lives.”

 


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