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Episcopal clergy urge local research and memorialization after pilgrimage to Equal Justice Initiative sites
Summary
Reverend Adam Shoemaker described a pilgrimage to Montgomery and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and said Charleston and Berkeley counties are not represented on the memorial’s lynching listings; the commission discussed possible city engagement to research local incidents.
Reverend Adam Shoemaker told the commission that members of three Episcopal congregations traveled to Montgomery, Ala., to visit sites organized by the Equal Justice Initiative, including the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum, and that the trip prompted questions about local memorialization.
Shoemaker said 45 people from his congregations, led by the diocese, went to Montgomery and worshiped at Brown Chapel AME Church, the historic site associated with the civil-rights march. He said the preacher at Brown Chapel that morning was Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, who connected local histories of slavery and lynching to later systems of racial injustice.
At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Shoemaker said the group noted the memorial’s county-by-county markers for documented lynching victims and observed that Charleston County and Berkeley County were not represented in the memorial’s listings. He told commissioners the group hoped to work with the Equal Justice Initiative and local institutions to research documented lynchings in the Charleston area and explore how the city might support local reckoning or memorialization.
Shoemaker also reported that the congregations are organizing collaborative services and advocacy trainings and are considering city engagement for research or joint pilgrimages tied to anniversaries. Commissioners suggested local scholarly and historical resources — including the Avery Research Center and the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery and its Legacies — as starting points for compiling archival evidence.
Commissioners supported exploring a city role in collecting and sharing documentation and suggested reaching out to local institutions that have previously curated related exhibits. Shoemaker asked the commission to consider whether the city could advise or assist in research to identify and document local lynching incidents so that communities could consider markers or other forms of commemoration.
Next steps: commissioners recommended staff identify local archival experts and organizations to consult, and to circulate contact suggestions so Shoemaker and his congregations can follow up with the Equal Justice Initiative.
