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Alexandria Community Remembrance Project
The Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandria understand its history of racial terror hate crimes and to work toward creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion.
The ACRP is part of the African American History Division. This division, formed in 2023, will ensure the continued inclusion of Black History in City museums and public programming, as well as advancing the City’s goal of building a welcoming community through equity and inclusion.
Sign up for Alexandria Community Remembrance Project eNews to have the Newsletter delivered to your inbox and to become involved in this initiative. You can read back issues of the newsletter below.
Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Newsletter
Newsletters, 2023
Newsletters, 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, December 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, November 2002
- ACRP Newsletter, October 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, September 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, August 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, July-August 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, May 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, April 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, March 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, February 2022
- ACRP Newsletter, January 2022
September 24 was the anniversary of Alexandria's Soil Collection Remembrance event for Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. This video provides a glimpse into ACRP's process and progress over the past year.
ACRP Pilgrimage to EJI
Oral Histories of Pilgrimage Participants
The ACRP provided participants of the pilgrimage with the opportunity to participate in an oral history recording. These recordings reflect upon the pilgrimage and the soil collection ceremony. Participants also retell memories from their own lives and how they relate to the ACRP. And lastly, these recordings provided participants with an opportunity to consider the future, such as how can we best honor the lives of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. Ultimately, these recordings will leave behind an archive of memories and stories for future Alexandrians who can learn more about the transformative work that the participants and the ACRP have done!
The Online Oral History Archive has transcriptions of more than 150 interviews conducted with City residents. Type Pilgrimage in the Search Box to see read these transcriptions.
Descendant Survey
To fully tell the story of Alexandria’s lynching history, the City of Alexandria wants to document not only the incidents but also stories from descendants. If you are related to one of the lynching victims, or if you are a descendant of anyone involved in the Joseph McCoy lynching (April 23, 1897) or Benjamin Thomas lynching (August 8, 1899), we want to hear from you.
Please share your story and contact information with the historians of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project. If you are a descendant, and feel comfortable sharing your family story, our historians can assist you in being part of the Alexandria project history. Your information will not be shared. Your name will not be made public unless you grant permission and then only on your terms. We want document these two lynchings as completely as possible. Our goal is to create an unbiased and accurate account of the lynching’s in 1897 and 1899. We believe family histories can aid in a better understanding of race relations in Alexandria and the Commonwealth. Your history could help move our community toward a city-wide understanding of racial terror and its impact on communities. Finally, it also hoped this important project will bring all races together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope.
Do you have family history related to Alexandria’s 19th century lynchings?
The Equal Justice Initiative
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a private, nonprofit organization that challenges poverty and racial injustice, advocates for equal treatment in the criminal justice system, and creates hope for marginalized communities. EJI opened The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama in 2019.
The Equal Justice Initiative published Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror in 2015, documenting thousands of racial terror lynchings in twelve states. Additional research documented lynchings in states outside the Deep South. EJI is "working to memorialize this history by visiting hundreds of lynching sites, collecting soil, and erecting public markers, in an effort to reshape the cultural landscape with monuments and memorials that more truthfully and accurately reflect our history."
EJI's Community Remembrance Project
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice includes over 800 steel monuments, or pillars, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place, with the names of the lynching victims engraved on the pillars. A field of identical monuments is in a park adjacent to the memorial. EJI's Community Remembrance Project invites counties across the country to claim their monuments and install them in the counties they represent. In addition to installing the pillars, EJI encourages participating communities to place a historical marker and to collect soil from the site of the lynchings, to "allow communities to gain perspective and experience that we believe is crucial to managing the monument retrieval process wisely and effectively."
Lynchings in Alexandria
Between 1865 and 1950, 99 Virginians, including at least 11 in Northern Virginia, were lynched. The lynchings were among 6.500 reported nationwide during the same period. Lynching was not a federal offense until March 29, 2022.
In Alexandria, there is documentation of the lynching of two individuals, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. See below for narratives of the lynchings. The City of Alexandria wishes to thank the members of the Research Committee for their more than 3,000 hours of work on the narratives.
The City of Alexandria is committed to the accurate dissemination of its history. The lynchings are recognized as a terrible chapter in Alexandria’s past. To fight injustice and keep the memory of Alexandria’s lynching victims alive, you are invited to participate in the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project.
Commentary: A Man Was Lynched in Alexandria: 120 Years Ago Today
Opinion piece by Audrey Davis, Director, Alexandria Black History Museum
Published in the Alexandria Gazette Packet, August 12, 2019.
The Anniversary of the Lynching of Joseph McCoy
Opinion piece by Audrey Davis, Director, Alexandria Black History Museum
Published in the Alexandria Gazette Packet, April 23-29, 2020, page 6.
Say Their Names: In Remembrance: Benjamin Thomas, August 8, 1899
Opinion piece by Audrey Davis, Director, Alexandria Black History Museum
Published in the Alexandria Gazette Packet, August 6, 2020, page 6.
State Lives With a Legacy of Terror as Nation Pays Tribute to Victims’ Descendants
By Avis Thomas-Lester
Published in The Washington Post, July 7, 2005
In Memoriam
The Lynching of Joseph McCoy, April 23, 1897
The Lynching of Joseph H McCoy: A Narrative
On the evening of April 22, 1897, 19-year-old Alexandrian Joseph McCoy was arrested without a warrant, dragged from his cell by a mob, and brutally lynched at the southeast corner of Cameron and Lee Streets. The full account of this hate crime was methodically researched in 2020 by the 13-member Research Committee of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project.
The Lynching of Joseph H. McCoy, April 23, 1897
In Memoriam
In Memoriam pages commemorate Benjamin Thomas and Joseph McCoy on the anniversary of their lynchings. You are invited to learn and share information about their short lives and racially motivated lynchings.
Joseph H. McCoy
April 23, 1897
Lynched on a lamppost at Lee and Cameron Streets
The Lynching of Benjamin Thomas, August 8, 1899
The Lynching of Benjamin Thomas: A Narrative
Around midnight on August 8,1899, a 16-year-old African American teenager named Benjamin Thomas was lynched in Alexandria, Virginia. A white terror mob comprised of Alexandria citizens attacked the city jail on St. Asaph Street, and Benjamin Thomas was dragged half a mile to the southwest corner of King and Fairfax streets, opposite Market Square. The full account of this hate crime was methodically researched by the 13-member Research Committee of the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project.
The Lynching of Benjamin Thomas, August 8, 1899
Map of the events of August 8, 1899
In Memoriam
In Memoriam pages commemorate Benjamin Thomas and Joseph McCoy on the anniversary of their lynchings. You are invited to learn and share information about their short lives and racially motivated lynchings.
Benjamin Thomas
August 8, 1899
Lynched on a lamppost at Fairfax Street near King Street
Frequently Asked Question About Lynching in Virginia
What is Lynching?
Lynching is the unlawful killing of a person by a large group (a mob). Lynchings were not just a way to express outrage about a particular behavior or crime; they were a way to control and intimidate African Americans. Unlike their white counterparts, the lynchings of African Americans were turned into spectacles, with mobs subjecting the victims to torture and humiliation before and after the executions.
How many lynchings were there in Virginia
The Tuskegee Institute has documented 100 lynchings in Virginia between 1882 and 1968.
Is lynching against the law?
Yes. But while the Virginia Anti-Lynching Law was enacted in 1928, and was the first in the country to name lynching as a state crime, no white person was ever convicted under this law. In December 2018 and again in February 2019, the United States Senate unanimously passed the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, a bill that would explicitly make lynching a federal hate crime for the first time. As of August 2019, the House of Representatives has yet to pass the bill. Between 1882 and 1968, more than 4,700 people (most of them African American) were lynched. Congress has tried and failed 200 times since 1882 to pass anti-lynching legislation.
Were African American men the only people lynched?
No, both white and black people were lynched in Virginia. African American men, women, children and seniors have all been victims of lynching.
Were the Jospeph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas lynchings in 1890s Alexandria the only lynchings in Alexandria?
The lynchings represented on our EJI pillar are the only documented lynchings in Alexandria. The work of the ACRP has uncovered an additional lynching that occurred in Alexandria on Christmas Day in 1865. On that day, John Anderson was murdered by a mob of white men, many who had fought in the war on the side of the Confederacy. You can read more about it in the December 2021 newsletter. ACRP will continue to research in the hope of uncovering other instances of race-related murder.
Do we know anything about the families of the people lynched in Alexandria?
No, we do not know about any relatives of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, who may be in the area. The Office of Historic Alexandria and the Alexandria Black History Museum are working to find the families of these men. We hope the public may be able to help with this research. Staff and volunteers want to know any information that may help us uncover relatives of McCoy and Thomas and any of the people involved in their lynchings.
If the people lynched were accused of terrible crimes, does it justify what happened?
Never. No matter how terrible the crime a lynching victim was accused of, our judicial system demands that the accused have the right to a fair trial in a court of law. The legal system must determine guilt or innocence and not vigilante justice. African Americans were often accused of horrible crimes with no basis in fact in order to encourage mob violence.
Were lynchings only perpetrated against people accused of serious crimes?
No. Offenses that could result in a lynching included things that would be considered trivial, such as a black woman reprimanding a white child; any African American confronting a white person about an injustice; African Americans who socialized or were romantically involved with whites; or an African American confronting a white person for stealing from them. These are all actual reasons people were lynched.
Were lynchings secret activities?
Lynching sometimes took place secretly, but it was primarily a mob action spurred by hate and vengeance. White mobs made lynchings a public activity. Unfortunately, those who supported what was happening often brought their friends and families (including children) to these events, which perpetrated a legacy of hate. Many times, African Americans were forced to witness what was happening. Souvenir photographs of lynchings were sold, and sometimes the mutilated body parts from the victims were sold as well. Lynching was used as a means to intimidate and control African Americans in the South. Lynching is racial terrorism.
When was the last documented lynching in Virginia?
It is believed that the lynching of Raymond Bird, on August 15, 1926, was the last recorded in Virginia. He had been accused of having sex with a white woman, and was dragged from jail by a mob in Wytheville, Virginia. They shot him, tied him to the back of a truck, and dragged him for miles. Finally, they left Bird hanging from a tree.
When was the last documented lynching in the United States?
The death by lynching of Michael Donald was the last documented lynching in the United States. In 1981, Ku Klux Klan members beat and killed him in Mobile, Alabama. They then hanged his body from a tree.
There is a pillar for Alexandria at the Equal Justice Institute's National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which commemorates the two known lynchings in Alexandria's history. When will the pillar come to Alexandria?
Alexandria, like other communities, is engaged in a multi-year process of education, dialogue and community work to enable us to claim our pillar from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). Alexandria held an initial community meeting on September 21, 2019 and ACRP continues to work with EJI on our journey toward our pillar.
Why memorialize such gruesome events in Alexandria’s history?
Lynching and racial terrorism traumatized the Black community and left deep and enduring psychological wounds. Whites who participated in or witnessed lynchings were also damaged psychologically. The fact is that in the wake of the murders of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, local and state officials acted with indifference and chose not to hold anyone accountable. In order for the entire community to heal, these facts need to be recognized and a permanent monument that commemorates the lynchings “has the power to end the silence and inaction that has compounded this psychosocial trauma and begins the process of recovery,” according to the Equal Justice Initiative.
Social Justice Reading List
Readings for Teens
- A Very Large Expanse of Sea - Tahereh Mafi
- All American Boys - Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely
- All-American Muslim Girl - Nadine Jolie Courtney
- Anger is a Gift - Mark Oshiro
- Dear Martin - Nic Stone
- Here to Stay - Sara Farizan
- How I Resist - Maureen Johnson
- March Series - John Lewis
- Out of Darkness - Ashley Hope Perez
- Piecing Me Together - Renee Watson
-
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning - Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi.
- Slay - Brittney Morris
- The Good Braider - Terry Farish
- The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas
- The Lines We Cross - Randa Abdel-Fattah
- The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights - Steve Sheinkin
Reading for Adults
- Between the World and Me - Ta'Nehesi Coates
- Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy - Darryl Pinckney
- Ebony & Ivory: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities - Craig Wilder
- Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower - Brittney Cooper
- For White Folks Who Teach In the 'Hood…And the Rest of Y'all, Too - Christopher Emdin
- How To Be An Antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi
- Men We Reaped - Jessmyn Ward
- Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin - Philip Cushway
- Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America - Melissa Harris-Perry
- So You Want To Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander
- We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy - Ta'Nehesi Coates
- When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir Patrisse Khan - Cullors & Asha Bandele
- White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Race Robin - DiAngelo
- A Reading List on Issues of Race. The Harvard Gazette.
Readings Related to Teaching Children about Race, Racism, Slavery, and Racial Terror Lynching
- RES (Racial and Ethnic Socialization): Developed by the American Psychological Association, this resource focuses on building and reinforcing positive outcomes in African American children. The resources, directed towards parents, caregivers, and educators of African American children and youth (ages 5-18) may prove helpful in the museum education context.
- Engaging my Child: Towards the bottom of the parent resource page, there is a break-down of discussing race and ethnicity by the age of child.
- EmbraceRace: This non-profit describes itself as “a multiracial community of parents, teachers, experts, and other caring adults who support each other to meet the challenges that race poses to our children, families, and communities.” Scroll the webinars to listen to or read the transcripts of them—don’t miss “How Children Learn about Race” and “How to Address Racial Injustice with Young Children” in this section. Tips and recommendations related to book selection are found throughout the site.
- Teaching for Change: Building Social Justice Starting in the Classroom has a “Teaching Resources” section of its website that includes everything from overarching themes like Anti-Bias Education to specific topics like Civil Rights. The News section is incredibly helpful in keeping up with the latest happening in and adjacent to the field. The thought-piece on “When and How to Talk with Young Children about Enslavement: Discussion Questions for Educators” within News provides good questions for conversation and consideration
- Teaching Tolerance: “Let’s Talk: Discussing Race, Racism and Other Difficult Topics with Students” is one of Learning for Justice’s many helpful resources. The pamphlet focuses on facilitating difficult dialogues with student groups. It includes a self-reflection section, facilitation techniques, and suggestions for adjusting strategies for K-5 students.
- Learning for Justice's blog post: This blog post on Learning for Justice’s website includes a helpful quick reference of do’s and don’ts for teaching slavery to students.
- DC Area Educators 4 Social Justice: As we seek to connect with and meaningfully contribute to what the community is already doing, this is a great network and resource for Alexandria museum educators to be a part of.
- Talk with Children about Slavery: This resource was developed by a mom and activist who wanted to help others talk to their kids about race, social justice, and other crucial issues. Her blog links to a lot of other resources beyond her own.
- Smithsonian Magazine, Indigenous Peoples’ Day: A useful article with links to additional resources as we rethink programming around what was Columbus Day and is now recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Alexandria.
- Racism and Violence: How to Help Kids Handle the News: From Child Mind Institute, on supporting your children during scary times.
- Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism: From PBS Kids -- Children are never too young to learn about diversity. Includes video of a virtual event.
- Talking to Kids about Racism: Marie Tae McDermott, in the New York Times. A school counselor and a children’s book author offer advice for talking to children about racism and George Floyd.