A small crowd gathered Saturday morning at a site once tainted by tragedy to reflect on the past.
“On September 12, 1884, a mob of at least 400 white men and women, young and old, lynched a 25-year-old black man named William Allen Taylor at the very same location,” Ed Gray said from the podium. .
At Trinity Overlook Park, just west of downtown Dallas, city leaders watched as the Dallas County Justice Initiative unveiled a plaque telling the story of Dallas' darkest chapter.
In 1884, hundreds of people hanged Taylor, even though he proclaimed his innocence on charges of assaulting a white woman.
Saturday's ceremony is just the latest part of an effort to install public signs memorializing black members of the Dallas community like Taylor, whose stories have faded over time.
“It shouldn't have taken this long, but we're here now. This is a good education and a good demonstration that we understand our history and that something like this never happens again.” We don't want it,'' Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins said.
Earlier this year, the Dallas County Justice Initiative, led by Ed Gray, was also responsible for unveiling a marker at the Old Red Courthouse, where Allen Brooks was thrown from a courthouse window in 1910 and where 5,000 people awaited trial. I lost it. People gathered to watch him be lynched.
“We're not revising history, we're teaching history, the history of Dallas, as it is. We have to learn from the past and learn to move forward,” Gray said. said.
Next, he said, four others are working on plans for a lynched martyrs park, keeping the focus on a difficult past with hope for a better future.
