On Sunday afternoon, in a field between the Wolf River and a miniature golf course, several hundred people met under a tent. From a stage brimming with Memphis interfaith leaders, musicians and high school students organized by the Lynching Sites Project, words affirming the purpose for gathering were spoken: Prayer, repentance and healing from the events that happened 100 years ago on the same land.

In May 1917, a 16-year-old white girl named Antoinette Rappel was found decapitated near this site, at the old Wolf River Bridge. Ell Persons, a black woodcutter who lived nearby, became the focus of an investigation and was interrogated twice, arrested twice and released both times. When he was arrested a third time, a confession came, only after facing violence during the questioning.

An angry white mob pulled Persons from a train that was transporting him for his trial. On May 22, 1917, they dragged him to the Wolf River Bridge where thousands were already gathered to watch an untried man meet his end by lynching. Historical reports describe the scene almost festival-like with vendors selling snacks and school children present.

The Lynching Sites Project (LSP) is a local group working with the national effort by Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative to memorialize known lynchings in the United States. Over the last year and a half, the LSP has worked to erect this memorial for Persons while also acknowledging the violent death of Rappel.

During the ceremony, some of the speakers touched on the complicated relationship between memory, history and Memphis’s race relations as it pertains to ongoing debates with the removal of the monuments to Confederate soldiers.“Removing them does not change history,” Rev. Dr. Roslyn Nichols said. “But it acknowledges our choice in how we recognize our history,” “So as we work to take down monuments of pain and suffering, we erect those that help us to honor all and acknowledge the fullness of our history.”

Family wearing traditional African clothing embrace each other.
A family embraces while listening to the ceremony. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50
Black woman holding program and singing.
Folks attending the ceremony sang “Lift Every Voice And Sing” together. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50
Young Black boy leans on a metal pole.
Sulaiman Mohamed, 10, leans on a tent pole while listening to the ceremony. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50

Also present at Sunday’s ceremony were Michele Lisa Whitney, a descendant of Persons and Laura Wilfong Miller, a descendant of Rappel.

Rev. Dr. Andre Johnson prays with Michele Lisa Whitney, a descendant of lynching victim Ell Persons, and Laura Wilfong Miller, a descendant of Antoinette Rappel, who was killed in 1917.
Rev. Dr. Andre Johnson prays with Michele Lisa Whitney (center,) a descendant of lynching victim Ell Persons, and Laura Wilfong Miller (left,) a descendant of Antoinette Rappel, who was killed in 1917. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50

“Many wonder what is the significance of drudging up this past?” Whitney said during her remarks at the end of the ceremony, honoring Memphis as her grandmother’s hometown, father’s birthplace and spiritual resting place of her great uncle.

“I can only speak from my own experience with grief that the only way out is through it. The emotional responses that happen as a result of grief must be faced. The emotions of fear, anger and just plain sadness. There is no way around them no matter how uncomfortable these feelings may be.”

People walk through the woods to the site of the old Wolf River Bridge as Central High School concert singers and Boy Scouts from Troop 27 guide them. Photos by Andrea Morales for MLK50

After the ceremony, people filed from the tent to a trail that had been mowed clear by LSP volunteers. A short quarter-mile hike through the woods put people in between the two abutments of the old Wolf River Bridge, where the lynching took place.

(Left) Petals laid near one of the bridge abutments. (Right) Laura Wilfong Miller, whose great-grandmother was Antoinette Rappel’s aunt, and Michele Lisa Whitney, whose great-uncle was Ell Persons, walk together to the site of the lynching. Photos by Andrea Morales for MLK50

Handfuls of flower petals were handed out to visitors to lay at the site. Whitney and Miller walked there together.

Petals lay near the shore of the Wolf River. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50

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