Surveillance video from the gas station was a key piece of evidence Louisville Police looked at, however the security footage had been recorded over by mistake.
“Strange Fruit” by jazz singer Billie Holiday with a voice and phrasing like no other conveys the horror and tragedy of racial lynching.
On Friday it was sung by Pastor Armon Lowery of Newberry’s Mount Zura Full Gospel Baptist Church under a live oak from which people were lynched, and the imagery of the song became real in a way like no other.
It was one of many wrenching moments in a soil collection ceremony in honor of the Newberry Six a group of African Americans lynched here more than a century ago as part of a city and countywide truth and reconciliation effort to come to terms with an ugly history.
Newberry honors lynching victims in soil collection ceremony
Alachua County organizations worked with the Equal Justice Initiation to pay tribute and apologize to the Newberry Six February 8, 2021 | 6:30am EST Gail K. Watson (left) and Brenda Whitfield (right) scoop dirt into glass jars at the soil ceremony for the Newberry Six on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Whitfield spoke during the ceremony before the crowd began adding earth to the containers. Photo by Chasity Maynard | The Independent Florida Alligator
On the cold, cloudy Friday morning, more than 50 people gathered to pay tribute to the Newberry Six victims of a 1916 lynching in a soil collection ceremony held beneath an old tree’s twisting branches a