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A Maryland Community Gathered to Remember the Lynching of George Peck
Montgomery County residents collected soil from the site where Peck was dragged to his death in 1880https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/maryland-community-gathered-remember-lynching-george-peck-180973456/
In January 1880, a 22-year-old African-American man named George Peck was dragged out of a store in Montgomery County, Maryland, blindfolded, and hanged from a locust tree in front of a Presbyterian church. Peck had been accused—though not tried or convicted—of attempting to assault a white girl. The mob that decided his fate reportedly shouted “Lynch him!” as it perpetrated the brutal attack.
Peck never received a proper burial. His body was cut down the next morning while white church-goers filed their way into the house of worship. But during a ceremony that took place this weekend, nearly 140 years after his murder, Peck was remembered at the site where he was lynched.
As Liz Anderson reports for WTOP, members of the Montgomery County community gathered in a “grassy field” across from the Poolesville Presbyterian Church, where they took turns digging up the soil and depositing it into several glass jars. Some of the jars will be sent to local organizations like the Montgomery County Historical Society and the Historic Medley District in Poolesville. One will head to the Menare Foundation, which preserves the history of the Underground Railroad, and another will be sent to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, where it will be added to a collection of jars containing soil from lynching sites.
The EJI-Montgomery County collaboration marks the latest initiative in the Alabama organization’s “Community Remembrance Project”—a three-pronged undertaking that seeks to recognize lynching victims by collecting soil from lynching sites, erecting historical markers and engaging the public with a national monument.
...
In an effort to expose this dark chapter of Maryland’s history and usher in a process of reconciliation, state governor Larry Hogan recently signed a law creating a “truth commission” that will investigate racial terror lynchings and their ongoing legacy. As the act plainly acknowledges, lynchings were “intended to terrorize African American communities and force them into silence and subservience to the ideology of white supremacy.” No person in Maryland was ever tried or convicted for lynchings that happened there, and “[n]o victim’s family or community ever received a formal apology or compensation from State, county, or local government entities.”
...
Peck never received a proper burial. His body was cut down the next morning while white church-goers filed their way into the house of worship. But during a ceremony that took place this weekend, nearly 140 years after his murder, Peck was remembered at the site where he was lynched.
As Liz Anderson reports for WTOP, members of the Montgomery County community gathered in a “grassy field” across from the Poolesville Presbyterian Church, where they took turns digging up the soil and depositing it into several glass jars. Some of the jars will be sent to local organizations like the Montgomery County Historical Society and the Historic Medley District in Poolesville. One will head to the Menare Foundation, which preserves the history of the Underground Railroad, and another will be sent to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, where it will be added to a collection of jars containing soil from lynching sites.
The EJI-Montgomery County collaboration marks the latest initiative in the Alabama organization’s “Community Remembrance Project”—a three-pronged undertaking that seeks to recognize lynching victims by collecting soil from lynching sites, erecting historical markers and engaging the public with a national monument.
...
In an effort to expose this dark chapter of Maryland’s history and usher in a process of reconciliation, state governor Larry Hogan recently signed a law creating a “truth commission” that will investigate racial terror lynchings and their ongoing legacy. As the act plainly acknowledges, lynchings were “intended to terrorize African American communities and force them into silence and subservience to the ideology of white supremacy.” No person in Maryland was ever tried or convicted for lynchings that happened there, and “[n]o victim’s family or community ever received a formal apology or compensation from State, county, or local government entities.”
...
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