A Real Memorial to Jim Crow
In tiny Russellville, Kentucky, where 110 years ago four African-American men were lynched by a cheering mob. Today, a gut-wrenching exhibit ensures they are not forgotten.
From Wes Swietek at the Bowling Green Daily News:
"It was as easy to raise a (lynch) mob in Logan County in those days as to drop a hat ... ."
That was the observation of Bowling Green lawyer John Rhodes in 1944. Rhodes was looking back three decades on the power of mob violence he saw firsthand as one of the lawyers in a 1908 shooting case in Russellville involving an African-American named Rufus Browder.
Extraordinary steps were taken to protect Browder from lynch mobs — including having a jailer hide him overnight in a cemetery — but four other African-American men were not so fortunate.
They were hanged one by one from a cedar tree on a small rise in Russellville on the morning of Aug. 1, 1908, in a lynching case that would go on to have national repercussions, but remain largely forgotten for a century. An effort is now underway, however, to erect a historic marker for the quadruple murder and other racial killings in the county.
SNIP
Logan County is also unusual in that it houses a powerful memorial to the legacy of lynchings.
. . .
The West Kentucky African American Heritage Center in Russellville stretches across several buildings that chronicle the experiences of African-Americans in the region.
Perhaps the most powerful exhibit fills a small room. At the center is the work of folk artist Willie Rascoe — a small tree with nooses dangling from the branches. The surrounding exhibits tell the story of numerous Logan County lynchings, with an emphasis on the quadruple 1908 lynching.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment