“We must truthfully confront our history of racial injustice before we can repair its painful legacy.”
– Equal Justice Initiative (eji.org)
COMMUNITY GATHERING EXPLORES MIAMI-DADE’S LYNCHING HISTORY
On Saturday, November 13, at 10:00 a.m. at Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church,
10701 SW 184th St, West Perrine, FL 33157, the Miami-Dade TEAR Initiative (Truth,
Education, and Reconciliation) invites the community to join a crucial journey toward
justice and healing at a groundbreaking gathering focused on the history of the three
documented lynchings of J.B. Harris, William Simmons, and Roy Gaines, and the
lessons and tasks that these unpunished murders present to us today.
TEAR, a collaboration established in 2018 by Barry University, South Florida People of
Color, Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, and Dr. Marvin Dunn, supports the work of the
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, which has created a six-acre
National Memorial to the more than 4,400 lynchings of African Americans, in its
nationwide effort “to memorialize documented victims of racial violence and foster
meaningful dialogue about race and justice.”
The gathering in West Perrine, less than ten miles from where these lynchings occurred,
will present to the Miami-Dade community the latest updated information that we now
have, and will focus on identifying, as closely as possible, the exact locations of those
murders for the placement of historical markers. We also invite individuals who may be
or who may know family descendants of the lynching victims, or who may have learned
details about the incidents from previous generations to document their stories, as well
as those with knowledge of other instances of racial violence in Miami-Dade which may
not have fit the category of actual lynchings.
Admission to the event is free and open to the public.
For further information please
visit www.mdtear.com.
This event is brought to you by Barry University, Miami Center for Racial Justice, New Synergies
Consulting, South Dade NAACP, South Florida People of Color, Sweet Home Missionary
Baptist Church, and Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.
