Organizers hope Saturday's 10th annual reenactment of lynching will be the last
Civil rights activists sponsoring Saturday’s 10th annual reenactment
of Georgia’s last known mass lynching expect a large crowd from across
the state, but hope they won’t have to keep reliving the bitter history
much longer.
The reenactments of the 1946 killing of two black couples on the Moore’s Ford Bridge in Monroe, Ga., were designed to rattle the consciences of some of the 200 or so witnesses in hopes they would come forward and lead investigators to the perpetrators who have escaped prosecution all these years. Last year, one man did come forward to relay tales he had heard as a boy of his family members recounting atrocities they participated in against blacks.
The event organizers have written the chairmen of the congressional judiciary committees to ask for hearings to pressure federal investigators to step up their actives.
One organizer, state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, speculates that part of the reason for the lynching and what he said was its cover up by federal investigators at the time was because the U.S. Supreme Court had given blacks the right to vote in Georgia’s formerly all-white Democratic primary that summer. So, this year’s events surrounding the reenactment will include discussion of voting rights, he said.
“It’s going to be more around voting rights that were in demand by the black people in 1946,” he said.
Over the years, as word has spread, teachers have assigned essays to students about the lynching, and community groups from Fort Valley, Milledgeville and other cities throughout the state have begun bringing in students by the busload to the reenactments.
The event begins 10 a.m. Saturday at the First African Baptist Church, 130 Tyler St., Monroe. In addition to the reenactment, participants will convoy to the gravesites of the victims as well as that of a Butler man lynched a week before the Moore’s Ford victims.
Brooks said organizers also hope to one day build a museum in Monroe to house artifacts of the lynching and serves as a forum for reconciliation.
Organizers hope Saturday's 10th annual reenactment of lynching will be the last
The reenactments of the 1946 killing of two black couples on the Moore’s Ford Bridge in Monroe, Ga., were designed to rattle the consciences of some of the 200 or so witnesses in hopes they would come forward and lead investigators to the perpetrators who have escaped prosecution all these years. Last year, one man did come forward to relay tales he had heard as a boy of his family members recounting atrocities they participated in against blacks.
The event organizers have written the chairmen of the congressional judiciary committees to ask for hearings to pressure federal investigators to step up their actives.
One organizer, state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, speculates that part of the reason for the lynching and what he said was its cover up by federal investigators at the time was because the U.S. Supreme Court had given blacks the right to vote in Georgia’s formerly all-white Democratic primary that summer. So, this year’s events surrounding the reenactment will include discussion of voting rights, he said.
“It’s going to be more around voting rights that were in demand by the black people in 1946,” he said.
Over the years, as word has spread, teachers have assigned essays to students about the lynching, and community groups from Fort Valley, Milledgeville and other cities throughout the state have begun bringing in students by the busload to the reenactments.
The event begins 10 a.m. Saturday at the First African Baptist Church, 130 Tyler St., Monroe. In addition to the reenactment, participants will convoy to the gravesites of the victims as well as that of a Butler man lynched a week before the Moore’s Ford victims.
Brooks said organizers also hope to one day build a museum in Monroe to house artifacts of the lynching and serves as a forum for reconciliation.
Organizers hope Saturday's 10th annual reenactment of lynching will be the last
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