Salisbury Plans Memorials To Victims Of Lynchings

A historical marker to commemorate three Salisbury citizens who were victims of racially motivated lynching may be placed in the city in early 2021.

The Salisbury Lynching Memorial Task Force has reached a partnership with the Montgomery, Alabama -based Equal Justice Initiative. The non-profit is working with the Salisbury organization to center other activities around the dark time in history, including a racial justice essay contest open to students.

“History is alive. It forms our present-day realities and it shapes us into who we are today,” Salisbury Lynching Memorial Task Force co-chair Michaela Moses said. “Parts of our past may be hard to accept, but if we can tell the truth about what happened here, we can begin to heal and move forward as a community.”

Also planned is a community soil collection project, which preserves soil at lynching sites that becomes a part of educational exhibits about racial violence and injustice.

“This project at its core aims to tell the truth about what happened to Salisbury’s lynching victims, the injustices that they suffered right here in our community, and the atrocities that occurred in places that many citizens unknowingly walk or drive past every day,” City Administrator Julia Glanz said. “The partnership between our incredibly dedicated Task Force and the Equal Justice Initiative will help do just that- tell the truth and memorialize those whose lives were unjustly taken from them.”