S.C. churches plan
service to atone
for 1916 lynching
By AP from boston.com
on the Web, July 8, 2005
ABBEVILLE, S.C. -- Local
churches will hold a reconciliation service next week to apologize for not
trying to stop racial strife decades ago, including the 1916 lynching of a
wealthy black farmer.
During Tuesday's service, white church leaders will confess the sins of their
ancestors and apologize to the black community for events such as the death of
Anthony Crawford. His great-great-granddaughter praised the ministers'
plan.
Ministers representing the black community will accept the apology and extend
forgiveness in return, said the Rev. Wendell Rhodes, the pastor of Friendship
Worship Center in Abbeville and organizer of the event.
The idea for the service came when Crawford's lynching was prominently mentioned
during the US Senate's formal apology last month to the descendants of victims
of lynchings.
''What was taking place was wrong, and the church and others remained silent.
I felt that if we had this kind of service, healing could take place here and we
could move on," Rhodes said.
Doria Dee Johnson, a great-great-granddaughter of Crawford, said she has been
waiting for something like this for decades.
''All this time, this is what we've really been pushing for," she said.
''What we want is for representatives for the perpetrators and the victims of
lynchings and other such crimes to sit down and have honest dialogue."
Johnson traveled from her home in Evanston, Ill., last month to watch the Senate
apologize for not outlawing lynching.
She told the story of Crawford, who was jailed after an altercation with a white
man.
''They dragged him down the stairs, tied him to the back of a buggy, drug him
around the square, stabbed him, beat him, and hung him on a pine tree at the
county fairgrounds," Johnson said.
Johnson and other members of a group called Southern Truth and Reconciliation
recently held marches in Abbeville on the anniversary of Crawford's lynching,
but she said she felt as though the community did not care.
But Tuesday's service makes her feel as though the town is ready to take the
first step, she said.
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