The Alachua County Community Remembrance Project (ACCRP), in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama, will host a Soil Collection Ceremony as part of its ongoing efforts toward Truth and Reconciliation surrounding the history of racial terrorism and lynchings in Alachua County during the Jim Crow era. The ceremony will result in another jar being added to the county’s Truth and Reconciliation soil display located at the Alachua County Administration Building (12 SE 1st Ave., Gainesville).
The event will take place on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, at 10 a.m. in the Historic Saint Peter – Pinesville Community (17026 SW 83rd Ave., Archer). The public is encouraged to attend.
The ceremony will honor Tom Williams, who was lynched in Archer on Oct. 8, 1871.
In 1871, Williams was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, representing Alachua County during a time when many African Americans were gaining political representation. This period saw over 1,500 African American officeholders across the South.
The event will feature a poem read by Khloe Wimms, a student from Newberry High School, as well as remarks by Commissioner Charles S. Chestnut IV and Rev. Carl Smart, who will speak on the historical significance of this project. The Archer subcommittee will also unveil a community-created quilt symbolizing unity and remembrance.
The soil collected from lynching sites serves as a tangible connection to the lives lost and the history that must be remembered. By gathering, displaying, and creating a space for dialogue around this part of our past, the soil will give voice to those who were so brutally silenced.
For each victim, ACCRP members and volunteers ceremonially collect soil to be displayed both in Alachua County and at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
Learn more about Alachua County’s Truth and Reconciliation efforts.
