CHS Students Attend the Community Remembrance Project Event

In 1893, Thomas Smith was brutally lynched in Roanoke.  The events surrounding his killing are unusual; the city briefly descended into near civil war between defenders of the rule of law and bigoted vigilantes, and the chaos that ensued became international news.  It was the most violent day in Roanoke’s history.   Yet, while remarkable, Mr. Smith’s death is also an extreme example of a much larger sustained pattern of racist terrorism that led to the death of thousands.

On the 129th anniversary of that event, Roanoke finally publicly acknowledged and memorialized the deaths of Mr. Smith and of William Lavender, who was lynched the year before.  That memorialization is due to the Community Remembrance Project, a volunteer group made up of thirty or so people from across the city, including Josh Chapman, who have been working for years to partner with the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice.