6 | BALANCING THE SCALES | July 19, 2021
Eastern Kentucky Community Remembrance Project reckons with history of racial violence and slavery mines of Birmingham Alabama at the age of nine and by the age of eleven was charged and convicted of killing a white man. After spending years in prison, Butler’s father moved to Kentucky to get away from his painful past. He eventually worked more than fifty years in the coal mines. Butler spoke with pride about the mining, mechanical skills, and hard work he learned from his father.
This article contains mentions of racial trauma, slavery, and violence against Black people. The Big Sandy Chapter recently launched a community remembrance project that aims to encourage learning and action for racial justice and reckon with the local history of racial terror and lynching. Using a model developed by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, group members plan to foster community conversations and dialogue, memorialize incidents of racial lynchings, lift up the vibrant history and present-day experiences of Black people and communities in eastern Kentucky, and create opportunities for diverse people to work together to build more inclusive and just communities. “Jean and I first became aware of the local history of lynchings in eastern Kentucky when we visited the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama,” explained John Rosenberg. “It’s important for us to face this history.” EJI has documented a number of lynchings in eastern Kentucky, including the killing of a 28-year old Black man named Fredrick “Kid” Shannon in 1924 by an armed mob. Newspaper reports said a mob of several hundred attacked a jail in Wayland, Kentucky where Shannon was being held, using sledge hammers and drills to break down the door. Shannon was shot eighteen times and later died of his injuries. Although more than a dozen armed deputies were on duty, they later claimed that the attack was “so quiet” and the sky so dark that no individual members of the mob could be identified and none were charged. According to EJI, additional documented racial lynchings took place in Knott, Breathitt, Harlan, Whitley, and Laurel counties. A Black man from Pike County was also taken across state lines by a white mob and later killed in Mingo County, West Virginia. As KFTC members and other local residents first considered how to begin a process of community engagement and dialogue about this history, they decided to begin with a service project. Beverly May noted that the upcoming Memorial Day weekend would be a good time to clear an old cemetery where
Jerry Hardt, Tom Matijasic, Tom Vierheller, Beverly May, Mimi Pickering helped with the clearing of the cemetery
many Black folks from Wayland were known to be buried. On May 29, with support of Wayland Mayor Jerry Fultz and permission from nearby property owners, a group of fifteen volunteers climbed a steep hill with chainsaws, loppers, and machetes and worked all day removing trees, briars, and shrubs from the site. At midday they paused for a lunchtime program emceed by Emily Hudson, the founder of the new Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum and Cultural Center in Hazard, Kentucky. “This has been a good day, a powerful day,” she said. “It reminds us all of the power of stories, and the importance of uncovering our history.” To open the program, Tiffany Pyette shared a land acknowledgment recognizing that Wayland is the traditional homeland of Shawnee, Cherokee, and Yuchi nations. “We must name our histories to combat the continuation of colonialism and antiblackness in our lands.” Randy Wilson then sang a gorgeous version of the hymn “Tryin’ to get home.” Then James Butler, a local resident who provided a delicious barbecue lunch for the group, shared some of his experiences as a Black man and coal miner who grew up in nearby Wheelwright, Kentucky. He described how his own father had gone into the coal
Remarkably, the group ate lunch in the community center located directly across the street from the original Wayland jail, the site where Fredrick Shannon was incarcerated, attacked, and killed by the white mob. That small brick building still stands in the center of town.
After lunch, as the group returned to work in the cemetery, the site began to reveal more of its stories. At first, there appeared to be no visible headstones, only sunken places in the ground where people had been buried. But as vegetation was removed, volunteers located and propped up a number of stone markers, including some with names and inscriptions: Spencer Martin, Born 1836. Died Nov 15, 1910. Not dead but sleeping. L.H. Payne, Born March 13, 1880. Died Feb 19, 1935. Gone but not forgotten. Willie Lewis, Born Oct 5, 1918. Died Feb 7, 1947. He is not dead but sleepeth. U.M.W.of A. At the end of the day, Tiffany Pyette led a brief ceremony at the site. She later explained, “I brought to the gravesite sacred medicines: cedar, sage, and sweetgrass, along with my pheasant wing smudge fan, to be in ceremony for those we have lost and with those who are doing this work. I grew purple calla lilies in my home leading up to the service project day
