The publication is reproduced in full below:
IN HONOR OF THE EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE'S COMMUNITY REMEMBRANCE
PROJECT
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HON. MARK POCAN
of wisconsin
in the house of representatives
Friday, August 13, 2021
Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, today I rise to recognize the installation of a historical marker in the Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church yard on August 1, 2021, which will memorialize the life and death of three American citizens who were lynched in 1908. This month my constituent, Ms. Joyce Salter Johnson, will travel with friends and family from Wisconsin to Mississippi to honor her relative, Frank Johnson, as one of those three men who were violently murdered in Hickory, Mississippi.
This historical marker is part of the important work being done by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in honoring and memorializing lives lost to racial violence in America through its campaign, the Community Remembrance Project. Since its founding in 1989 by American lawyer and bestselling author Bryan Stevenson, EJI has fought to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenge racial and economic injustice, and protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable. EJI has become a critical institution dedicated to addressing the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation through its robust projects, museums, and memorials. In April 2018, EJI opened America's first national memorial dedicated to victims of racial terror in Montgomery, Alabama, inspired by the late Dr. James Cameron's Black Holocaust Museum, founded in my home state of Wisconsin.
EJI's Community Remembrance Project partners with community coalitions to do extensive research of documented victims of racial violence. Its sister project, the Community Soil Collection Project, gathers soil at lynching sites for display in powerful exhibits honoring these victims. Narrative historical markers are then built in public locations where racial terror took place.
My constituent, Joyce Salter Johnson, is a historian and author whose third book provides a thorough history of the Freedmen Settlement of Good Hope, Mississippi, where she lived until the age of 10. That is how she knew of the terrible sequence of events that led to the October 10, 1908 lynching of her relative, Mr. Frank Johnson, and two others, Dee Dawkins and William Fielder, prior to EJI's documentation. Because of her knowledge and adept research ability, she was perfectly suited to lead the coalition members working on the Community Remembrance Project for these men.
I commend the work of the Equal Justice Initiative and all those who help further the Community Remembrance Project's mission of confronting the legacy of slavery, lynching, and segregation to pave the way toward a better, more just future. I extend my heartfelt best wishes, thanks, and solidarity to Ms. Johnson and her family and friends on their journey of remembrance and memorial.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 146
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