The date is August 19, 1886. Eliza Woods, an African American woman from Jackson, Tenn., is dragged from jail by an angry mob of white people. She has been accused of poisoning her employer Jessie Woolen. Woods receives no jury, no opportunity for defense; she only receives retribution and injustice for a crime she never committed. The mob strips her of not only her clothes, but also her dignity as she is hanged in front a crowd of hundreds. They watch as her naked body slowly grows limp before they finally disperse.
The Equal Justice Initiative hosted a memorial ceremony on Friday at Jackson State Community College for not just Eliza, but also John Brown, who was lynched in 1891, and Frank Ballard, who was lynched in 1894, to acknowledge the evil and systematic injustice of which they were victims.
“There are many people who would criticize this gathering, who would say that we are looking at life through the rear view mirror,” said Jody Pickens, the Attorney General for the 26th Judicial District for the State of Tennessee. “But to them, I’d say this: We can’t move forward into the future until we acknowledge the past.”
And it is definitely a painful past for the South and the state of Tennessee to acknowledge. Between 1877 and 1950, there were 233 recorded lynchings in Tennessee and over 4,000 throughout the entirety of the South. That is an average of four lynchings per month.
“Most of us have no knowledge of the past, and those that do seem to talk past it,” said Harrell Carter, the president of the Jackson-Madison County NAACP. “It’s part of our history in Jackson, Tenn., as it is in the rest of the South.”
The ceremony was not just one of sober remembrance and commemoration, but also one of hope and change. Many voiced their hope for the future and their desire for the end of bigotry and racism.
“The deaths of Eliza Woods, John Brown and Frank Mallard, as well as those of many other African-Americans, will not be in vain,” said Richard Donnell, the senior advisor to the president of Lane College. “We will remember them. We have the power to pick up the stones of injustice and turn them into stones of justice and equality.”
The dean of social work at Union University, Mary Anne Poe, also stressed that racial reconciliation and social change should be a natural extension of the Christian gospel message.
“As a follower of Jesus, I have recognized the need to take up my cross, and part of my cross is trying to understand the pain and suffering that African-Americans have endured,” she said. “For the cross of the Roman Empire was very well the lynching of the Roman Empire.”
