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Gainesville’s first soil collection ceremony memorializes city’s lynching victims
About 100 community members, Gainesville residents and local officials gathered to honor the 12 victims February 22, 2021 | 6:30am EST
Alachua County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, 69, (right) and her granddaughter Tashayla Downer, 8, (left) fill a jar with soil to honor Andrew Ford at the Gainesville Soil Collection Ceremony on Feb. 20, 2021. Ford was lynched in Gainesville on Aug. 24, 1891, according to a pamphlet from the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. Photo by Julia Cooper | The Independent Florida Alligator
Latoya Brazil didn’t know the story of how her great-grandfather Lester Watts was lynched in Gainesville until she was 17