About the Workshop:
The Moore's Ford Memorial Committee, Inc. (MFMC), founded in fall 1997 to commemorate two African American couples lynched at the Moore's Ford Bridge near Monroe, GA in 1946, and Emory University's Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) will co-host, with the Auburn Avenue Research Library, a workshop on racial violence and reconciliation on Oct. 26-28, 2001, in Atlanta, Georgia. Representatives from grass roots groups across the country--in Chattanooga, TN, Duluth, MN, Monroe, GA, Ocoee, FL, Orangeburg, SC, Price, UT, Rosewood, FL, Tulsa, OK and Wilmington, NC--who have examined lynchings and racial atrocities in their home communities and taken positive steps to deal with these legacies will tell their stories and develop information and tools for future use by other communities.
The general history of lynching in the United States, with its roll call of over 3,000 documented victims--mostly African American--has been told in some history books and a few documentary films, but more work needs to be done. These histories must be retold and memorials held in the towns and counties where these lynchings occurred, where present day descendants of the victims and the killers now live.The experiences of workshop guests suggest that after decades of silence and denial, Americans at the grass roots may finally be willing to confront these atrocities against primarily African American citizens, resurrect and record this history, remember the dead and begin to heal these long neglected but still festering wounds.
Workshop Goals:
Speakers and participants will:
- tell and record their stories for a wider audience
as well as each other
- brainstorm ideas and identify resources for building
networks and making information available to other communities who have
had similar lynchings and atrocities but who have not found the voice, tools,
or support to begin the acknowledgement and healing process
- recommend strategies for promoting justice and racial healing in dealing with lynchings and racial violence, past and present, in America.
