Who Are We?

 

We are a growing organization of local and locally-connected residents who have worked since 2016 to bring attention to these historical harms and bring about racial unity.

 

The Lynchings in Our County

 

At least nine men and one woman were lynched in Harris County between 1861 and 1947. In 1912 when four innocent people were lynched and in 1947 when one innocent man was lynched, law officers were present and some participated. No perpetrators were named; no charges were ever brought, as was the case with almost all the nearly 5,000 men, women, and children lynched nationwide between 1860 and 1950.

 

It is known that there were more racial terror lynchings here, but only these eleven have been recorded to date. Our memorial will recognize that there are unknown victims. 

 

More details about these lynchings and their victims can be found under individual names on our website.

 

Our Purpose

 

Our purpose is to inspire and educate the public about racial injustice at home and throughout the country and to promote the work of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. To achieve these goals, we are committed to ongoing public conversations on difficult subjects, to conducting a racial justice essay contest in partnership with EJI, to speaking out when racial injustices are being committed, and to raising funds sufficient to build a memorial park to honor those African Americans whose lives were so cruelly and unjustly ended.

 

It is our hope that these efforts will result in Harris County becoming an example and beacon of racial justice and reconciliation for other communities in these challenging times.

 

About Our Logo

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Our Periwinkle logo is based on the flower that scholars believe was the most common wildflower brought to grave sites of enslaved Americans and their descendants. This hardy perennial flower, also known as Vinca, has guided researchers to many abandoned burial grounds that would have otherwise gone undetected. We are symbolically planting periwinkles on the graves of those whose lives were taken unjustly in terror lynchings in Harris County, Georgia.