On Wednesday, February 26, 2020, at 8 p.m., the Memorial Service for the Victims of Lynching video will premiere on Cox Cable Channel 12. The video was filmed at Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church on Friday, February 7. The Memorial Service included prayers, reading of scriptures, a reading of victims’ names, a candlelight ceremony, singing, and remarks by family members and community leaders. The event honored the over 40 victims of lynching in the County.
The Memorial Service was organized as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process. On June 26, 2018, the Alachua County Commission began discussing a process for Truth and Reconciliation to recall the County’s history of racial injustice, and repair what they can. The process was prompted by research completed by the Alachua County Historical Commission (ACHC) in response to the national Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) lynching research.
EJI constructed a memorial structure at the center of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is made up of over 800 corten steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. The names of lynching victims are engraved on the monuments. EJI is inviting counties across the country to claim their monuments and install them in their permanent homes in the counties they represent.
To find other times and days to watch the Memorial video, view the complete
Channel 12 Schedule.
For more information, contact Alachua County Communications and Legislative Affairs Director Mark Sexton at 352-264-6979 or
msexton@alachuacounty.us.