Best known for her series of deconstructed flags, Sonya Clark offers poignant, clearsighted reminders of this country’s legacy of racial violence.
By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative
On August 16, 1904, a mob of unmasked white men in Marengo County, Alabama, lynched Rufus Lesseur, a 24-year-old Black man, and left his body riddled with bullets.
Less than two days earlier, a white woman in Thomaston, Alabama, claimed that a Black man had entered her home and frightened her. After someone claimed that a hat found near the woman’s home belonged to Mr. Lesseur, a mob of white men formed and kidnapped him. The white men transported a terrified Mr. Lesseur into the nearby woods, and locked him in a tiny calaboose, or makeshift jail (pictured above), for more than a day.
Featured Image, Ozier Muhammad
Full article @ EJI, Equal Justice Initiative