A few paces from where the statue of Old Joe once honored Civil War confederate soldiers, a different group of people were honored Saturday 12 Gainesville men who were lynched after the war.
The ceremony was part of Alachua County’s truth and reconciliation project to acknowledge the extra-judicial killings often by mobs.
“In 1865, after two-and-a-half centuries of brutal enslavement, Black Americans had great hope that emancipation would finally mean real freedom and opportunity,” said the Rev. Carl Smart, an assistant county manager. “Unfortunately it quickly became clear that emancipation did not mean equality for Black people .The hope of reconstruction quickly became a nightmare of unparalleled violence and oppression.”