NPS asks Americans to help decide fate of 8 Memphis-area lynching sites

NPS opens comment period on historic sites

The National Park Service wants to hear from the public about eight lynching sites in and around Memphis, Tennessee. The agency is studying whether the locations should become part of the National Park System.

Comments are open until April 3, 2026. The sites span from 1868 to 1940 and are all in Shelby County or nearby Haywood County.

More sites could be added through research and public feedback.

Congress directed NPS to launch this study

Congress ordered the study through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. The legislation grew from a bill that Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen introduced in 2022.

Cohen’s office worked with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis and the Tennessee Historical Commission to identify the sites.

The law gives NPS three years to finish the study and send its findings to Congress. After that, Congress decides whether to act.

Eight sites cover at least 16 victims

The eight sites cover lynchings from 1868 to 1940.

Seven of the eight are in Memphis and Shelby County. One took place in Brownsville, about 60 miles northeast.

Together, the sites account for at least 16 named victims.

The NPS is using the NAACP’s 1940 definition of lynching: a killing carried out outside the law, by a group, under the claim of serving justice, race, or tradition.

Four criteria determine each site’s future

For a site to get a recommendation, it has to meet four criteria Congress set: national significance, suitability, feasibility, and need for direct NPS management.

The agency evaluates them one at a time. If a site fails one, the review stops there. Even a positive recommendation does not guarantee action.

Only Congress or a presidential proclamation can create new National Park System units, regardless of what the study finds.

A county jail event helped launch a movement

On March 9, 1892, a white mob took Thomas Moss, Will Stewart, and Calvin McDowell from the Shelby County Jail and killed them.

The three men co-owned the People’s Grocery, a Black-owned store in Memphis whose success had drawn customers away from a competing white-owned shop. Moss was a close friend of journalist Ida B. Wells.

His killing pushed Wells to begin her anti-lynching campaign, exposing the economic motives behind racial violence.

More than 6,000 Black residents left Memphis in the aftermath.

1917 killing drew thousands of witnesses

On May 22, 1917, a white mob killed Ell Persons, a Black woodcutter, near the Wolf River on the outskirts of Memphis.

Local newspapers had published the time and place in advance. About 5,000 people gathered to watch. The case drew national outrage.

That July, roughly 10,000 people marched through New York City in what became known as the Silent Protest Parade.

The killings helped lead to the founding of the Memphis branch of the NAACP. No one was ever prosecuted.

Ell Person’s site now on National Register

In August 2024, the Ell Persons lynching site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The site sits near 5400 Summer Ave. in Memphis and remains largely undeveloped.

Historians with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis researched and nominated it. Researchers were able to pinpoint the exact location because the event was so thoroughly documented.

It is believed to be the first site in the country listed on the National Register specifically for its significance as a lynching location.

1940 killing claimed a civil rights pioneer

On June 20, 1940, local police officers took Elbert Williams from his home in Brownsville, Tennessee. Williams was a charter member of the Brownsville NAACP branch, founded in 1939 to help register Black voters.

His body was found three days later in the Hatchie River. He is recognized as the first known NAACP member killed for his civil rights work.

The NAACP, the FBI, and the Justice Department all investigated. The DOJ closed the case for the final time in November 2020 with no prosecution.

A national push to mark racial violence

The NPS study connects to a broader effort to document and memorialize sites of racial violence across the country.

The Equal Justice Initiative opened the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., in 2018, dedicated to lynching victims.

Its Community Remembrance Project has organized soil collections and marker installations at lynching sites nationwide, including the Memphis area.

The Department of the Interior has noted that very few public memorials exist for the suffering Black Americans faced during the post-slavery era.

Four public meetings set for Feb. and March

The NPS has scheduled four public meetings on the study. A virtual session runs Feb. 27 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. CST. In-person meetings follow:

March 3 at the Oxford Public Library Auditorium in Oxford, Miss., from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. CST; March 4 at Rhodes College in Memphis from 6 to 8 p.m. CST; and March 5 at Carver High School Auditorium in Brownsville, Tenn., from 6 to 8 p.m. CST.

Written comments can also be submitted through the NPS ParkPlanning website.

Congress gets the final say

After the comment period closes April 3, the NPS will keep researching and evaluate each site against the four criteria.

The agency will send its final study and any recommendations from the Secretary of the Interior to Congress. From there, Congress decides whether to act and in what form.

The authorization gives NPS until roughly late 2025 or early 2026 to finish, though timelines for congressionally directed studies sometimes run longer.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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