Memorial for Madison County lynching victims completed

JACKSON, Tenn. — A new memorial is erected honoring African Americans whose lives ended brutally.

“Part of this effort is to memorialize, and to bring some symbol of justice to the victims of lynching that occurred in Madison County,” UT Martin associate professor of criminal justice Dr. Cindy Boyles said.

Dr. Boyles said it’s been an almost two year process, but now a new memorial stands where two lives ended.

Eliza Woods and John Brown were both lynched on the grounds of the Madison County Courthouse.

Woods was lynched in 1886, and Brown in 1891.

Some county officials voted down the memorial at first, but then reconsidered and approved it.

“We wanted to put the marker up back in April, we wanted to have a big public dedication ceremony at that time, but of course the pandemic got in the way,” Boyles said.

Friday, Boyles and others celebrated the memorial’s completion in a small ceremony, and remembered African Americans who died as a result of what she calls ‘domestic white terrorism.’

“People were accused, but never given a chance to prove their innocence or even to be found guilty, except by anything other than a vigilante group,” Boyles siad.

Woods was accused of poisoning the wife of her employer, Jesse Wooten.

“They dragged her here to the courthouse yard, and in this area right here, they hung her to a tree and tried to force her to confess,” Boyles said.

Brown was accused of shooting a train switch man after being told to get off a train for not having a ticket.

The worker survived.

“John Brown was lynched for killing a man that lived,” Boyles said.

Boyles also discussed Frank Ballard, an African America man who was lynched for assaulting a young woman in what’s known today as Beech Bluff.

She says she and the Jackson-Madison County Community Remembrance Project plans to honor Ballard with a marker in Beech Bluff.

“To be able to bring this forward and to be able to talk about it, and to be able to try and start some conciliation between the races here, is a very powerful and emotional feeling,” Boyles said.

She said she and the coalition are looking for descendants of the three known lynching victims in Madison County.