City of Alexandria to Hold Soil Collection Ceremony on September 24 Commemorating Lynching Victims

For Immediate Release: September 20, 2022 

On September 24 at 4 p.m., the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project (ACRP) will hold a Soil Collection Ceremony in memory of Alexandria’s two lynching victims, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. The ceremony will be held at Market Square, 301 King Street, and is open to the general public.  

The Soil Collection ceremony honors the lives and acknowledges the tragic deaths of McCoy and Thomas. Soil will be drawn from two wooden vessels designed and built by 8th grade students at Jefferson-Houston IB School. The soil will be placed into jars which, in turn, will be given to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). Community members are welcome to take part in this ceremony. In addition, there will be an ACRP pilgrimage on October 6-10 to deliver the soil jars to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

McCoy was a 19-year-old African American who was taken from a cell at the police station by a mob of white men. He was lynched at the southeast corner of Cameron and Lee Streets on April 23, 1897.

Two years later, on August 8, 1899, Thomas, a 16-year-old African American, was pulled from the city’s jail and dragged more than half-a-mile by a white lynch mob. He was hanged and shot at the corner of King and Fairfax Streets, opposite Market Square.  

These two lynchings are among a total of 4,743 that occurred in this country between 1882 and 1968, as documented by EJI. The EJI has called upon communities nationwide to remember victims of racial terror by researching their stories, collecting soil representing their lives and deaths, and taking a pilgrimage to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.  

ACRP is a city-wide initiative dedicated to helping Alexandrians acknowledge and understand its history of racial terror hate crimes. ACRP conducts research, education programs, and events that remember Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas and explores the long-term impacts upon Alexandria’s  community.

Working with the Equal Justice Initiative Remembrance Project, ACRP will receive a steel pillar that memorializes McCoy and Thomas. The pillar will be transported to a permanent space of remembrance in the City of Alexandria at a future date to be determined.

The work of ACRP is an effort to establish a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion for all people.  

Visit alexandriava.gov/Historic for more information. 

For inquiries from the news media only, contact the Office of Communications & Public Information at newsroom@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.3969. 

For reasonable disability accommodation, contact nicole.quinn@alexandriava.gov or call 703.746.4554, Virginia Relay 711.

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This news release is available at alexandriava.gov/go/3971