Va. Highway Marker, Virtual Film To Memorialize Lynching of Black Man

KING AND QUEEN COUNTY, VA

A state historical highway marker will be dedicated on Saturday, October 14, at Noon in King and Queen County. The marker will memorialize James Horace Carter, an African-American man who was lynched 100 years ago on October 12, 1923. Although the incident garnered substantial publicity around the country, no one was ever brought to justice for the Carter lynching, the only documented lynching in King and Queen County.

The dedication program will take place in the King and Queen County courthouse, 242 Allens Circle, King and Queen Court House, Virginia 23085. The marker unveiling will take place at the marker site at the intersection of Allens Circle and Route 14, just yards away from the courthouse.

Event speakers will include Joseph S. H. Rogers, Director of Partnerships and Community Engagement at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond and members of James Horace Carter’s family. The public is invited to join the ceremony in person or to view the livestream at www.facebook.com/ mpaaghs

The dedication program will include a soil collection ceremony. A soil sample collected from the Carter lynching site will be sent to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama and a sample will be kept at the King and Queen Courthouse Tavern Museum. The Legacy Museum houses an installation of more than 800 soil samples from lynching sites around the country.

James Horace Carter was a 45-year-old husband and father. Two weeks before the lynching, a white woman had admitted that Carter was the father of one of her children. He was charged with rape and arrested.

While being driven by officers to the King and Queen County jail, a mob seized him from the car, shot him ten times (five in the face, four in the chest, and one in the back) while he was still shackled, and left his body in a ditch.

Gov. E. Lee Trinkle offered assistance and the case was widely reported, but no one was prosecuted for the murder. The woman’s

CHESAPEAKE POLICE AND CHURCHES PARTNER FOR A “COMMUNITY COOKOUT”

CHESAPEAKE husband later used her admission of adultery as grounds for divorce.

The Chesapeake Police Department is hosting a “Community Cookout” on Saturday, Oct. 7 from 12 to 2 p.m. at the Campostella Square Park.

Family will also be participating.

The King and Queen County Board of Supervisors recently issued a resolution that condemned and expressed regret for the lynching of Carter and other victims of racial terror. The resolution proclaims October 12 as James Horace Carter Remembrance Day in King and Queen County in perpetuity.

As a prelude to the marker dedication, on October 12, at 6 p.m., there will be a virtual screening of “An Outrage,” an awardwinning documentary film about lynching in the American South. Filmed on location at lynching sites in six states, the film is bolstered by the memories and perspectives of descendants, activists, and scholars as it serves as a vehicle to remember a long-hidden past. Created by Virginia filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren of Field Studio, the 33-minute film premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2017 and since then has been screened for audiences around the country.

A community discussion will follow the screening. To receive a Zoom invitation to this virtual program, or for further information, email mpaaghs.va@gmail. com or call (804) 6518753.

Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society is the sponsor of the marker and the film screening. The Board of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which has the authority to designate new historical markers, approved the marker in September 2022. Although there are more than 100 documented lynchings in Virginia, state highway markers have been erected for only five of them. Organizations that have endorsed the Carter marker dedication and film screening are the King and Queen County Democratic Committee; King and Queen County NAACP; King and Queen County Historical Society; Mattaponi Friends Meeting

(Quakers); New Mount Zion Baptist Church, Walkerton, Virginia; Third Union Baptist Church, King William, Virginia; and Zion Baptist Church, King and Queen Court House, Virginia.

The event is called “Faith and Blue” and is part of a national initiative that weekend designed to bring together law enforcement and the faith-based community. The CPD is partnering with Greater Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Portlock United Methodist Church for this event. The Buffalow

Local Voices

Faith & Blue was inaugurated in 2020 by Movement Forward, Inc., working with the Of fi ce of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Of fi ce) at the U.S. Department of Justice.

The idea was a simple but powerful one – the ties that bind of fi cers and residents must be reinforced if we are to build neighborhoods where everyone feels safe and included.

For more information on Faith and Blue please visit https://faithandblue. org/

WHAT IS SACRED?

By Sean C. Bowers

What is sacred is defined as something dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; that which is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or that which inspires awe or reverence among believers.

Using those definitions one cannot confuse 45 as any type of sacred person, leader, or man.

In fact, 45 attacks are the things most people navigate and struggle to overcome. Most of us live up to the oaths that we sign or take on. Most of us respect each other and the rule of law. 45 on the other hand, surrounded himself with his selfchosen sycophants who are more than willing to bend, break, and shatter the 246-year-old constitution, the guard-rail that has kept America on track since her inception.

That belligerent minority who walk willingly wantonly into that unknown chaos do so for many reasons, (in their minds,) none of which have been proven to hold water or to hold up in the nation’s courts of law. Unhappy people seek to destroy that which they can no longer control for their own purposes, profits, or pessimism. Theirs is a shadowy story of “what-about-isms,” and conspiracy theories based on zero facts, evidence, and proof. The more this group attempts to lower the bar, and to cheat and illegally know no limits: he is hollow, soul less, without remorse or conscience. 45 mistakenly thinks, as do some of his most-lost followers, that he is “the Second Coming,” and see his as “their savior.” step over the bar, the more America is exposed to their creepy callowness wrapped in their personal “other White meat” grievances. Their audacity is stupendous as they dare to upset the entire system for the one person who has repeatedly demonstrated “the least” when it comes to sacred trusts and truths. 45 openly scorns all legal system norms. It was never “brave” to bully and attack Gold Star families and to denigrate John McCain who actually served our country and protected America via his oath. It may be easy for someone who has never served to criticize others, but it is nevertheless unbecoming. True believing Godfearing Christians know 45 is NOT as he should be, according to their own “GOOD BOOK.”

45 is a broken, broke, excuse for, a man. It has a name: selfish egoist.

45’s vision is a blind “eye-for-an-eye” “I-for -I” retribution. In 45’s lexicon and experience, he would have everyone sightlessly bumping into everything and everyone. The darkness of 45’s depths

What a dark day it must be to discover that your hollow-gramic-zerohero, void of reverence, responsibility, or respect has been playing you for suckers this whole time. 45 has been scheming, scamming, and fundraising using his followers to wrangle every last cent he can from them. Ask yourself these questions: Why does a (fake) billionaire refuse to pay his debts, legal bills and his own way? Why doesn’t 45 honor U.S. Government subpoenas and his sworn oaths? Why doesn’t 45 ever put nation over party, and over self? Why can’t 45 just do right, act right, be right? We all know the answer to these questions. It is ultimately because he is absorbed with himself and feels he is above the law and his is a law unto himself.

Something is deeply flawed and damaged in 45. He knows it. We all know it. Make no mistake, I am not implying that there is some perfect candidate waiting to step forward to lead America. I am saying 45 only leads us all to a self-absorbed giant pity party. It’s all about him, never about others. 45 is a broken, broke, excuse for, a man. It has a name: selfish egoist. America is built of “better stock” than that which 45 demonstrates. America’s next “date with destiny” arrives in November, 2024. Let’s ensure that when the clock strikes midnight, that this orange torturous tumultuous Trumpian trainwreck shall once and for all be vanquished. May our collective vote return us to the sacred- to those people producing American’s best.

Sean C. Bowers has written the last 25 years, as a White Quaker Southern man, for the nation’s third oldest Black Newspaper, The New Journal and Guide, of Norfolk, Virginia, about overcoming racism, sexism, classism, and religious persecution. Some of his latest NJ&G articles detailing the issues can found by searching “Sean C. Bowers” on the NJ&G website. Contact him directly on social media at Linkedin.com or by email V1ZUAL1ZE@aol. com NNPA 2019 Publisher of the Year, Brenda H. Andrews (NJ&G 35 years) has always been his publisher.