The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis

06/07/2026

We hope to see you tomorrow at the Barth House for our Monday Community Meeting!

🧷 Our special guest, Dawn Currica, will be discussing our Quilt Project.

One of our main goals is to engage the arts and artists in this work, and we hope you will join us tomorrow evening. All are welcome!

https://lynchingsitesmem.org/event/lsp-monday-community-meeting-11

06/04/2026

🧷 Come see us at the Barth House on Monday night, June 8 at 6pm! We'll be revisiting our Quilt Project, with special guest speaker Dawn Currica. All are Welcome!

06/01/2026

Today in history...

Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

05/27/2026

Today in Memphis history...

Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

05/22/2026

On this day in Memphis, TN

Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

05/22/2026

In May of 1917 the decapitated body of a 16 year old white girl, named Antoinette Rappel, a student at Treadwell School, was found at the old Wolf River Bridge near what is now Summer Ave. Suspicion fell on Ell Persons, an African American woodcutter who lived nearby. Persons was arrested twice, interrogated twice and released twice before being captured a third time and reportedly beaten into a confession.

Upon his capture by a mob local papers announced that he would be burned the next morning. The crowd gathered to watch was estimated at 3,000. Vendors set up stands among the crowd and sold sandwiches and snacks. It was reportedly a carnival-like atmosphere.

Persons was hauled to a cleared space beside the abutment on the west side of the river. Containers of gasoline were poured over his body. Some complained that too much gasoline was used and he burned too fast.

Learn more here: https://lynchingsitesmem.org/lynching/ell-persons

Once his charred body had cooled, he was decapitated, and the severed head was photographed and printed on postcards.

No one was ever arrested for the crime.

05/19/2026

"It reminds visitors that taking pride in one’s country requires memory."

A new exhibition makes George Washington seem like anything but a saint. That’s a good thing.

05/19/2026

Today in history...
https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/19

"Williams isn't the first artist to turn her attention to Turner's death, or to lynching. The sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller created a work honoring Turner in 1919. Two decades later, Billie Holiday seared the crisis into music history with "Strange Fruit." More recently, the Equal Justice Initiative honored victims with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., which opened in 2018."
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/975960845/an-author-replies-to-the-unspeakable-in-her-elegy-for-lynching-victim-mary-turne

Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

05/12/2026

Join us tomorrow night for a very special LSP Community Meeting! We are excited to welcome our friend, author Tom Thrailkill back to Memphis! All are welcome!

📆 Tuesday, May 12, 2026
⌚️ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
📍 Good Shepherd United Methodist Church (6050 Summer Ave, Memphis, TN)

Learn more about Tom Thrailkill here:
https://lynchingsitesmem.org/news/pilgrimage-reflections-tom-thrailkill

Purchase Murder on the Macon Road:
https://store.bookbaby.com/book/murder-on-the-macon-road?srsltid=AfmBOor8uCWobkhCP_xfJSMx-qmwC4HMzvgJgoXKZxLXEXfgTiFqACAi