Sumner Hall’s James Taylor Justice Coalition wishes to invite the community to participate in Justice Day 2022 at 12:30 pm, May 14, in downtown Chestertown. The program will recognize Kent County High School student winners of a Racial Justice Essay Contest; feature musical and spoken word performances; and conclude with a Soil Collection Ceremony held near the site of the 1892 lynching of James Taylor.
Participants and winners of a Racial Justice Essay Contest for local public high school students in grades 9-12 will be recognized on Justice Day. This scholarship contest is part of the community remembrance work of the Sumner Hall’s James Taylor Justice Coalition in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a national organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. Each student was challenged to write an essay that reflects on an historical event and connect it to present-day issues and their lived experiences. Eighteen Kent County High School students submitted essays to the competition, and prizes totaling at least $5,000 will be awarded to winning participants. EJI staff will announce the winners and present the awards at the Justice Day ceremony, and the students’ readings will provide commentary on instances of racial and social injustice experiences.
The Soil Collection Ceremony is in remembrance of James Taylor, a 23-year-old Black man who was lynched on May 17, 1892, by a mob of about 60 masked and armed individuals with an estimated 500 citizen onlookers. After being accused of allegedly assaulting the daughter of his white employer, Mr. Taylor was abducted from police custody by the mob, dragged into the street, and hanged from a tree near the Chestertown Courthouse. He never had a chance to stand trial for his alleged crime, and the presumption of innocence followed him to the grave. Despite reports that members of the mob were known, no one was ever held accountable for the lynching of James Taylor. Mr. Taylor is one of at least 40 African American victims of racial terror lynchings killed in the State of Maryland between 1854 and 1933.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) offers this Soil Collection Ceremony in connection with its Community Remembrance Project, which focuses on memorializing the more than 6,500 African American victims of racial terror lynching killed between the end of the Civil War and World War II. The Community Soil Collection Project helps to publicly memorialize the traumatic era of racial terror by collecting soil from lynching sites in America. Jars of collected soil are displayed in Montgomery, Alabama at EJI’s Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, and Peace & Justice Memorial Center. Following this soil collection ceremony, a glass jar containing the soil will be part of Sumner Hall’s permanent exhibition and a group of Kent County residents will travel to Montgomery, Alabama to deliver a jar to EJI, for its national exhibition. The Soil Collection Ceremony will help to draw the connection between the racial terror lynchings of the past to racial and social injustices experienced by minorities today.
“We need to know our history if we want to make change happen today,” said Larry Wilson, President of Sumner Hall. “Justice Day is a way to understand the racial and social injustices of today in their historical context. We hope that folks will mark their calendars and join us on May 14th in downtown Chestertown.”
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