At least 589 lynchings reported in GA through Google initiative
<p>The wounds of racial torture of African Americans during the Civil War and World War II are still evident in the Deep South.</p>
ATLANTA – The fight against racial injustice is at the center of the current political and economic climate of the United States. The wounds stemming from racial torture of African-Americans during the Civil War and World War II are still evident in the Deep South. More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950. The stories of these individuals have never been told.
On Tuesday, Google and the Equal Justice Initiative unveiled “Lynching in America,” a new website that gives insight on white supremacy and the devastating public acts of racial terrorism that occurred in at least 20 states.
“Google has been able to take what we know about lynching, and what we have heard from the families, and what we have seen in the spaces and the communities where these acts of terror took place, and make that knowledge accessible to a lot more people. To create a platform for hearing and understanding and seeing this world that we’ve lived through,” EJI founder and Executive Director Bryan Stevenson said.
The Lynching in America site brings together Equal Justice Initiative’s in-depth research and data with the stories of lynching victims, as told by their descendants. Through six audio stories, and a short documentary, Uprooted, you both hear and feel the impact of this dark time in history on generations of families. You can also explore an interactive map that includes incidents of racial terror lynchings, as well as in-depth profiles of the stories behind these acts of violence.
In 2015, Equal Justice Initiative received a $1 million grant from Google.org to help fund the From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration Museum, as well as its Memorial to Peace and Justice.
After the grant was made, EJI and Google.org looked for further ways to work together. EJI’s recently published report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (in the form of an 80-page publication), seemed like an opportunity to leverage Google’s expertise — organizing information and making it more universally accessible — in the name of amplifying Equal Justice Initiative’s message.
An interactive map for the project shows a least 589 lynchings happened in the state of Georgia. The map shows that African Americans were terrorized and brutally killed in Monroe, Fulton, and Bibb Counties in addition to several other counties.