It happened here: The legacy of lynching in Charlotte

LEVINE MUSEUM OF THE NEW SOUTH

Good Samaritan Hospital, the site of Bank of America Stadium, was Charlotte's Black hospital during state-ordered racial segregation for most of the 20th century. Good Samaritan was the site of a lynching when Joseph McNeely, was dragged from his hospital bed and shot to death by a white mob on Aug. 13, 1913.

Charlotte’s reputation as a beacon of the New South glosses over an ugly legacy.

During a time when lynching Black people was epidemic across the region, Mecklenburg County was no exception. Although there are only two confirmed instances of lynchings in Mecklenburg – both in the early part of the 20th century – there is a belief that undocumented incidents also took place. The result of such violence was mental as well as physical with the implied threat that Black people were to remain second-class citizens without access to legal or social redress.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Remembrance Project is an initiative that acknowledges Mecklenburg County’s history of racial terror lynchings through spoken word, video and community engagement. The project is a collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative, which commemorates the legacy of racial violence against Black Americans through lynching.

In an interview with The Post, Krista Terrell, the local project’s content and communication chair, discussed the initiative’s goals, and why light should be shone on one of Mecklenburg’s darkest chapters. Responses are edited for brevity and clarity.

Subject: Charlotte’s link to the initiative.

The Remembrance Project is part of a national movement by the Equal Justice Initiative that’s based in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s part of a national movement by the Equal Justice Initiative to tell the truth about racial terror lynchings across America, to understand how the violent history shapes our lives today, and to help our community move towards reconciliation.

It’s really important that it’s not just lynchings, but racial terror lynchings. Those were intentional to continue to have that fear among Blacks.

EJI has two documented racial terror lynchings in Mecklenburg County. We know that there are many more. But based on Equal Justice Initiative’s, rigorous process, there are two documented lynchings in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. One is Mr. Joseph McNeely. Mr. McNeely was dragged from his hospital bed and shot to death by a white mob on Aug. 26, 1913, … in front of Good Samaritan Hospital after an altercation with a police officer. That site is now part of Bank of America Stadium where the NFL Carolina Panthers and MLS Charlotte FC play.

The second documented lynching is Mr. Willie McDaniel. After arguing with a white landowner about not being paid for work he had done, he was found dead the next day by a little Black girl with his neck broken near his rented home on June 30, 1929 in northeastern Mecklenburg County, We don’t know exactly how he was killed or at or the specific site where his body was found, but most of the landowner’s farm is now part of Reedy Creek Park and Nature Preserve.

Subject: Core components of the project.

KT: We are collecting soil at the locations where the men were lynched. We are also erecting a historical marker at each site where the lynchings took place. There are ongoing community conversations, both small, personal, hosted gatherings and can be in larger community spaces.

We really encourage residents, especially those that are most hurt and harmed by this history, to host their own community conversation. It can be in their living room or at a kitchen table or in their churches. … And then there's also a racial justice essay contest that will be forthcoming for high school students. …

A future ambition of the project is to claim a duplicate of the Mecklenburg County Mark monument that is currently on display at EJI as national memorial for peace and justice down in Montgomery, Alabama. So, you have the memorial and the markers that are there. There’s also duplicate markers right outside the memorial for each of the counties.

EJI has not released these markers or put a plan together, but we know that they would like to return those markers to … counties where the lynchings took place.

Subject: Why it’s important to bring forward local history of racial violence.

KT: We believe that there are various ways for people, whether they've lived here, native Charlotteans, or new to the area, to engage in this work. I believe the website really is, is a great resource for people to do. They can engage in the work. And really, we want people to learn about this history, because they can learn about the history through the short film, their short and long narrative of the men’s story that really corrects misinformation, especially about Mr. McNeely.

But we want people to also learn about Mr. McNeely and Mr. McDaniel’s stories, and to share their stories with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. We acknowledge that Mr. McNeely and Mr. McDaniel were killed due to racial terror, lynchings and support the project by sharing stories with others.

When you read the narrative, it’s really interesting how, before Mr. McNeely was lynched, it was reported in the Charlotte paper that [city] leaders were kind of boasting that we’ve never had a lynching here in Charlotte, race relations are really good. And then here, several days later, Mr. McNeely, was lynched. So I think … it really gives a sense of what Charlotte was like at the time, to really help people understand the climate of Charlotte during that time.

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