Community Prayer Service for Victims of Lynching

[Wesley Edwards]

Seventy-six years ago a mob in LaGrange killed a young man named Austin Callaway.  Six men removed him from the city jail, shot him repeatedly and left him to die on a rural road.

 

The police and city never sought justice.

 

Rev. L.W. Strickland, Pastor of Warren Temple Methodist Church, said, “They have settled the matter by ignoring it.”

On January 26, 2017, city and police officials in LaGrange ignored it no longer.  They made history by making a public apology for this act of brutality.

 

On March 18, the community will join together again--to pray, reflect and remember a tragic past.  Faith leaders from across the community will lead a prayer service, recognizing and mourning Callaway and three other African American men as victims of lynching in Troup County's history.

Austin Callaway was just one of nearly six hundred documented victims of racial terror lynching in Georgia between 1877 and 1950.  Few of these lynchings have been memorialized in public markers, though.  LaGrange will become one of the first communities in the state to acknowledge this bloody history with a permanent marker.  It will be unveiled at the end of the service.  The marker will also celebrate the courage of Reverend Strickland, who prophetically called for justice when others were silent.

Please attend this historic service.

Saturday, March 18, 2017
1:00 PM

Warren Temple United Methodist Church
416 East Depot Street
LaGrange, Georgia

Details available here.

A prayer vigil naming all 600 confirmed victims of lynching in Georgia is also planned. It will be held at Southview Cemetery on Edgewood Avenue in LaGrange, beginning at 7:00 AM on Sunday, March 19. All welcome.