Lynching memorial opens as Congressman John Lewis reflects on nation's past
Civil Rights icon Congressman John Lewis spoke to WRAL News recently about the The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which will serve as a monument to the victims of lynching in America.
Posted — UpdatedThey were also fathers, mothers, sons and daughters.
"We have not been acknowledged, my family, as victims of a lynching," said Josephine Bolling McCall, the daughter of a lynching victim.
Thanks to the group's research, the names of over 4,000 black men and women lynched between 1877 and 1950, mostly in the Jim Crow South, have been identified. EJI have recorded the North Carolina residents who were lynched.
Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights icon who represents George in the U.S. House, spoke to WRAL News during a brief trip to Raleigh about the country's history of lynchings.
Lewis spoke to WRAL News about the museum and this dark chapter in American history.
Oliver Moore, a Tarboro resident, was accused of assaulting two young white girls.
"You had crowds watching," Lewis said. "People would take their children. People would leave their homes with their little children, would leave church, and go and watch the lynching. It was like a happening.”
Stevenson says he hopes finally recognizing this history of racial violence in America will bring healing to everyone.
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