On March 12, 2024, a solemn and significant dedication ceremony unfolded outside the historic courthouse in downtown Fayetteville, Georgia, as dozens of community members and local officials gathered to unveil a new historical marker. This marker stands as a permanent testament, recognizing and remembering the victims of racial terror lynching in Fayette County, marking a crucial step in the community’s ongoing journey towards truth, justice, and reconciliation. The installation reflects years of diligent work by the Fayette County Community Remembrance Project (FCCRP) in close coordination with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), aiming to confront a difficult chapter of local history and foster collective healing.
A Moment of Remembrance and Accountability
The dedication ceremony, held in the heart of Fayetteville, approximately 20 miles south of Atlanta, brought together diverse voices united by a shared commitment to historical accuracy and communal progress. Janice Bryant and Tamika Smith, co-chairs of the FCCRP, opened the proceedings, emphasizing that acknowledging this dark history is not merely about looking backward, but about laying the groundwork for profound community healing and accountability. They highlighted that their coalition’s efforts are an integral part of a broader national network of remembrance initiatives championed by EJI, demonstrating a collective resolve to address America’s legacy of racial injustice.
Ms. Bryant articulated the profound purpose of the gathering, stating, "Today, we gather not only to unveil a marker, but to remember lives that were taken, acknowledge a painful chapter in our past, and confirm a commitment to truth, justice, and healing." Her words resonated with the attendees, underscoring the gravity and emotional weight of the occasion. The act of public remembrance serves as a powerful antidote to generations of silence and denial, validating the experiences of victims and their descendants.
The Rev. Edward Johnson, Fayetteville’s first Black mayor, offered a poignant opening prayer, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to reflect on historical injustices while simultaneously striving for a more just and unified future. Mayor Johnson underscored the vital importance of fellowship, compassion, and collective responsibility as foundational pillars for building stronger, more equitable communities. His presence and remarks symbolized the city’s official recognition and support for this critical historical reckoning.
County Commissioner Charles Rousseau further elaborated on the transformative power of publicly memorializing racial terror lynchings. These acts, he noted, were historically designed to intimidate, silence, and subjugate entire Black communities. Breaking that imposed silence, Commissioner Rousseau argued, is an essential step towards restoring dignity to the victims and their families. He powerfully stated, "Remembering is not about dwelling in the past. It is about telling the truth about the past, so that our future can be different. For generations, many stories like these were ignored, minimized, or left unspoken." His statement encapsulated the core philosophy driving the remembrance project: that an honest engagement with history is indispensable for shaping a better future.
Jennifer Harris, Senior Project Manager for EJI, articulated the broader significance of the Community Remembrance Project. She explained that connecting with local community coalitions across the country to document histories of racial terror and installing historical markers is a critically important facet of EJI’s overarching mission. These markers serve as educational tools, fostering remembrance and encouraging dialogue that can lead to reconciliation. To further honor the FCCRP’s dedicated work, Ms. Harris announced a significant gesture: a duplicate marker would be placed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. This ensures that "People around the world will know that people here in Fayette County have taken a stance to advance truth and justice," amplifying the local initiative onto a global stage.
The Genesis of the Fayette County Community Remembrance Project
The FCCRP, founded in 2021, emerged from a grassroots desire within Fayette County to confront and heal from its specific history of racial terror. Since its inception, the project has actively engaged the community in a series of poignant initiatives, including community soil collections from documented lynching sites. This practice, a core component of EJI’s national project, involves collecting soil from the precise locations where lynchings occurred, symbolizing the blood spilled and lives lost, and creating tangible artifacts of remembrance. These soil jars are often displayed locally and contribute to the EJI’s national collection, providing a deeply personal and visceral connection to the past. The FCCRP’s methodical approach, rooted in rigorous historical research and community engagement, exemplifies the dedication required to bring these hidden histories to light.
A Painful Legacy: Lynching in Fayette County
Between 1875 and 1919, a period marked by the brutal entrenchment of Jim Crow laws and white supremacy following the Reconstruction era, white mobs lynched at least seven Black people in Fayette County. These acts of terror were not random violence but calculated demonstrations of power, intended to maintain racial hierarchy and suppress Black aspirations for equality and freedom. The absence of legal accountability for these horrific crimes was a defining characteristic of the era, emboldening perpetrators and leaving victims and their families without recourse.
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October 17, 1875 – Clarke Edmundson: One of the earliest documented lynchings in Fayette County involved Clarke Edmundson. A large mob abducted him from a local jail and hanged him in Fayetteville. His alleged offense? Being in an interracial relationship, a transgression that often incited extreme white supremacist violence during this period, perceived as a direct challenge to the racial caste system. Edmundson’s lynching underscores the societal intolerance and the pervasive threat of violence faced by Black individuals who dared to defy racial norms.
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July 10, 1890 – Harrison Hastings and Anderson Williams: A tragic incident at Starr’s Mill led to the deaths of Harrison Hastings and Anderson Williams. During a fish fry, a fight erupted, culminating in a mob shooting both Black men to death. While a white man was charged with the unlawful killing of Mr. Hastings, he was never arrested, a stark illustration of the systemic failure of law enforcement and the judiciary to protect Black lives or prosecute white perpetrators of violence against them.
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August 11, 1893 – Dug Hazleton: Dug Hazleton was lynched near Line Creek following a white woman’s report of an assault. In this era, allegations of sexual impropriety against Black men, often baseless or exaggerated, frequently served as a pretext for mob violence. Historical records indicate that almost 25% of lynchings during this period were fueled by such allegations, highlighting the racialized nature of justice and the immediate, deadly suspicion directed towards Black men. Hazleton’s lynching, like many others, occurred without due process, trial, or any semblance of justice.
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May 20, 1899 – Thomas Linton: The turn of the century brought another act of racial terror with the murder of Thomas Linton. Masked "whitecaps," a term often used to describe white supremacist vigilante groups akin to the Ku Klux Klan, broke into his home and shot him to death. These organized acts of violence were designed to terrorize Black communities, enforce submission, and suppress economic or political advancements.
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February 17, 1918 – Bud Crosby: Bud Crosby was lynched by a mob near present-day Peachtree City, accused of attempted robbery and kidnapping. Like many allegations against Black individuals during this period, the veracity of the charges was secondary to the racial animus that fueled the mob’s actions. The swift, brutal "justice" meted out by lynch mobs circumvented any legal process, ensuring that Black individuals had no hope of a fair trial or protection under the law.
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July 31, 1919 – Charles Kelly: The year 1919, known as the "Red Summer" due to widespread racial violence across the United States, saw the lynching of 26-year-old Black World War I veteran Charles Kelly in Woolsey. Days after returning home from service, Kelly was shot to death by a white family. His perceived offense was failing to turn his car out of the road soon enough to let a white boy pass—a seemingly minor infraction that was interpreted as a grave violation of prevailing social norms and racial hierarchy. Kelly’s murder tragically exemplifies the extreme vulnerability of Black veterans returning from war, who, despite fighting for democracy abroad, were denied basic human rights and dignity at home. His story is a poignant reminder of the profound hypocrisy and brutality of racial discrimination in America.
In every one of these documented cases, no individual was ever held accountable for the lynchings. This systemic failure of justice is a critical component of understanding the enduring trauma inflicted by racial terror.
The Broader Landscape of Racial Terror in America
The lynchings in Fayette County were not isolated incidents but part of a widespread campaign of racial terror that gripped the United States, particularly the South, from the end of the Civil War until the mid-20th century. The Equal Justice Initiative has documented more than 6,500 Black people killed in racial terror lynchings between 1865 and 1950. After the Civil War, as formerly enslaved Black people sought to exercise their newfound rights and build lives of dignity, many white people vehemently opposed their emancipation and equality. Lynching emerged as the most public, notorious, and effective form of racial terrorism, designed to enforce white supremacy and maintain a rigid social order.
During this era, deep racial hostility permeated Southern society, burdening Black people with a presumption of guilt. This prejudice often served to focus suspicion on Black communities after a crime was discovered, regardless of whether any evidence supported that suspicion. Race, rather than any alleged offense, most often played a key role in determining who became a victim of lynching. The justifications for these acts were often flimsy, ranging from minor perceived slights to accusations of serious crimes without due process.
Public spectacle lynchings were deliberately orchestrated to maintain white supremacy and instill pervasive fear within the Black community. Lynch mobs targeted and attacked Black people both in public spaces and in their homes. Victims were often displayed for hours, sometimes days, with families frequently prevented from claiming their loved ones. This gruesome public display served as a chilling warning, a calculated attempt to maintain racial hierarchy through the constant threat of violence to the rest of the Black community. The psychological impact of such spectacles extended far beyond the immediate victims, creating a climate of fear that suppressed Black political, economic, and social advancement for generations.
A critical factor enabling this reign of terror was the indifference or active complicity of local law enforcement and political authorities. In most cases, law enforcement was ineffective in protecting Black residents from these attacks, allowing white mobs to employ violence and murder without fear of any legal repercussions. This systemic breakdown of justice meant that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes operated with impunity, further solidifying the message that Black lives held little value in the eyes of the law.
While many racial terror lynchings remain undocumented and their victims unknown, the seven individuals killed by white mobs in Fayette County are among more than 715 Black victims killed in Georgia alone, a state with one of the highest numbers of lynchings in the nation. This stark statistic underscores the pervasive nature of this violence across the state and region.
EJI’s Community Remembrance Project: A Path to Healing and Reconciliation
The Community Remembrance Project is a cornerstone of EJI’s broader campaign to acknowledge the victims of lynching and facilitate a national reckoning with racial injustice. The project encompasses several key initiatives: collecting soil from lynching sites, erecting historical markers like the one unveiled in Fayetteville, and developing the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, which include the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum. These sites serve as powerful centers for education, remembrance, and reflection on America’s history of racial inequality.
EJI firmly believes that by courageously confronting the truth of racial violence, communities can initiate a necessary and transformative conversation that advances healing and reconciliation. This work is not about assigning blame to present generations but about understanding the historical roots of contemporary issues and ensuring that the painful lessons of the past are never forgotten. The historical markers, strategically placed in public spaces, serve as constant reminders, prompting dialogue and education for current and future generations. They transform formerly unmarked sites of terror into spaces of remembrance and learning, challenging communities to grapple with their history.
The dedication in Fayetteville is more than just the unveiling of a plaque; it is a profound act of public memory, a collective commitment to acknowledging historical truths, and a tangible step towards building a more just and compassionate society. By shining a light on the darkest chapters of its past, Fayette County, through the dedicated efforts of the FCCRP and EJI, is forging a path toward genuine reconciliation, ensuring that the stories of Clarke Edmundson, Harrison Hastings, Anderson Williams, Dug Hazleton, Thomas Linton, Bud Crosby, and Charles Kelly are finally told, remembered, and honored. This courageous work provides a beacon of hope that communities can heal when they commit to truth, justice, and the enduring power of remembrance.
