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East Point to host ceremony honoring life of lynching victim Warren Powell

They will place a marker in his memory.

EAST POINT, Ga. — Editor's Note: The video above is from Warren Powell's soil collection ceremony.

East Point is honoring a life taken while recognizing its history this Labor Day weekend.

The City of East Point Public Art Division is partnering with the Fulton County Remembrance Coalition to commemorate the life of Warren Powell Sunday.

Powell was lynched in East Point in 1889. He was 14.

On Sept. 4, 1889, a masked mob of around 20 white men took Powell from the East Point jail and lynched him. The teen had been arrested and jailed earlier that day for allegedly attacking Ada Brooks, a white girl who was walking through the woods on her way home from school, the city said.

Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that documents the history of lynchings reports Powell is one of at least 35 African Americans lynched in Georgia's Fulton County between 1877 and 1950.

The county coalition has since partnered with EJU to "engage our community in a process of healing and reconciliation with our history of racial terrorism," their website reads. "We are committed to collecting soil at the sites of Fulton County's 36 documented racial terror lynchings, erecting historical markers, claiming our county's monument from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and fostering a lasting dialogue founded on truth and justice."

On Sunday, the group will work to live up to its mission.

The groups will host the ceremony at 12:30 p.m. at 2847 Main Street. They previously hosted a soil collection in Powell's memory in February, but on Sunday they will dedicate a marker to him.

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