STATESBORO - BULLOCH REMEMBRANCE PROJECT

EJI's Community Remembrance Projects

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice includes over 800 steel monuments, or pillars, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place, with the names of the lynching victims engraved on the pillars. A field of identical monuments is in a park adjacent to the memorial. 

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EJI's  Community Remembrance Project invites counties across the country to claim their monuments and install them in the counties where the lynchings occurred, a process that involves years of community conversation about the legacies of racial violence and justice locally. Prior to bringing the county's monument home from Montgomery, EJI encourages participating communities to place a historical marker at or near one or more lynching sites and to collect soil from the lynching sites. This process is designed and overseen by EJI to "allow communities to gain perspective and experience that we believe is crucial to managing the monument retrieval process wisely and effectively."

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Statesboro-Bulloch Remembrance Monument  

One of the six-foot pillars, shown here, records nine documented lynchings in Bulloch County between 1886 and 1911, including one for which EJI was unable to verify the victim's name. Five occurred within an 11-day period in August 1904, the first two being Paul Reed and William Cato. Their story is explored in Charlton Moseley's book, The Hodges Family Murders and the Lynchings of Paul Reed and Will Cato. Hundreds attended the book release event in 2018, including descendants of the victims, at the annual Bulloch County Historical Society meeting. Read coverage of the event here: https://www.statesboroherald.com/local/bullochs-most-infamous-event/

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Coalition Steering Committee

The Statesboro-Bulloch Remembrance Coalition is led by a Steering Committee with co-chairs.  The Steering Committee is in contact with EJI and is taking the required steps to “claim” our lynching monument.  It is our understanding that EJI has not released the steel monuments to any county at this time. 

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The steps involved in collecting the Bulloch monument from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice will include, but not be limited to:

• A series of public programs related to the Equal Justice Initiative

• A public ceremony to collect soil from the location of the Bulloch County lynchings

• A marker dedication at the site of the lynchings or other place of prominence

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Adrianne McCollar, Patrick Novotny, and Vivian Summers currently serve as Co-Chairs of the Coalition Steering Committee. Other members include:

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• Dorsey Baldwin

• Chris Caplinger

• Shontelle Childress

• Lisa Costello

• Ressie Fuller

• Johnny Gamble

• Tilicia Mayo-Gambl

• Delinda Gaskins

• Francys Johnson

• Yevette McCall

• Laura Milner

• Stacy Smallwood

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What's Next

Watch Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk, "We need to talk about an injustice."