Day of remembrance needed for lynching victims
Last March, I attended a talk by Patricia Hilliard-Nunn at the Matheson History Museum about the August 19, 1916, lynchings in an oak grove near the center of Newberry. I learned that a black man, Boisy Long, was accused of stealing hogs, and was blamed for shooting two white men in the dispute.
Long was ultimately arrested, tried and executed, but in the lawless search preceding his arrest, angry mobs of infuriated white people captured six other black people — four men and two women. The whites shot one of these men, James Dennis, and strung up the five other people by the neck in that oak grove. The Rev. Josh Baskins, Bert Dennis, Mary Dennis, Andrew McHenry and Stella Long died by hanging.
Hilliard-Nunn maintained a calm, open-hearted demeanor as she shared one devastating fact after another about this lynching in particular, and lynchings in general. She included historical data on the incidence of lynchings nationwide, and the fact that Florida had the highest per capita rate of lynchings in the country prior to 1949. She shared historical photographs of Newberry, including one of a large group of whites — men, women and children — standing over the bodies of the black victims.
What made me start to cry? Maybe it was the sheer accumulation of horror. Maybe it was the two black children sitting toward the front of the room with their father, who would live with these facts now, who might worry that this atrocity could happen again, who might worry they or their families would be victims, too.
Maybe it was the old white couple sitting next to them, who had to live with these facts now, too, who might also worry that this atrocity could happen again, who might worry they would be a part of it.
Maybe I was crying for my white ancestors, who may have cheered this 1916 lynching on, or who may have stood by, appalled.
Although I've lived in Alachua County off and on for more than 10 years, I’d never heard of the Newberry lynching. After the event at the Matheson, I searched for more information. But no monuments to the victims of this terrorism exist. Some historians and some African-American families have kept the knowledge of this atrocity alive, but otherwise there's been silence.
Perhaps that silence happened, as Hilliard-Nunn suggested, because black families were afraid of retribution if they spoke of the lynching outside of safe spaces, and white families, once the frenzy had died down, were ashamed of the lynching, so they didn't speak of it at all. But what happens when a truth like this one is buried?
At the conclusion of Hilliard-Nunn's talk, a woman in the audience rose to make a point: "When people say 'Why don't they just get over it?' that's because they don't know what 'it' was."
Now I’ve learned: this lynching, and events surrounding it, were one of many "it" events in our community’s history. We all need to know about the "it." And most importantly, we need, as a community, to acknowledge the multi-generational grief and fear and loss in order to heal, and in order to prevent the continuation of racist violence.
We need a public acknowledgment of the Newberry Six. Not expressions of guilt, white or otherwise. Guilt is a useless emotion that petrifies us; it keeps us in the past and doesn’t lead us to action. Not expressions of resentment; those, too, can petrify us and keep us in the past.
Acknowledgment, remorse and empathy are the humane responses to violence: sorrow that the violence occurred, recognition of and empathy for others’ suffering and our own suffering, and a determined resolve that the violence will not happen again.
This year, we can choose, as a whole community, to mark the passing of 100 years since a mob of angry white people perpetrated the mass murder of six black people in Newberry. We can express a community resolve that murders like these will never happen again, that we will teach our children nonviolence and mutual respect. We can also mark the 100 years of silence that minimized the racist terrorism of our recent past, a silence that disrespected grief, loss and fear.
None of us need to get over the story of the past. We need to learn each others' stories, and we need to learn those stories by heart.
— Michele Leavitt lives in Gainesville and is the author of the Kindle Singles memoir "Walk Away."