Edward Sullivan, Elbert Harris, John Laddison, Reuben Elrod, and Willis Jackson. Those are the names of the five known lynching victims identified in Anderson County, between the years 1894 and 1911.
“It was tragic, it should not have happened. We hope it never happens again,” Member of Anderson Area Remembrance and Reconciliation Initiative, Stuart Sprague said. When these names came to light, Sprague said he knew something had to be done, to honor them. “What can we do then to make sure that we are on a course which will not lead to something like that again,” Sprague said.
A native Anderson artist, Herman Keith Jr. created a sculpture with a goal to educate people on the terrors of what a lynching was like, while remembering these 5 people. “You almost have to put yourself in the emotion of the lynching,” Keith said. “My research showed that a lot of lynchings were events that happened pretty much all day. The community became involved in it. They carried over into the night.”
The lanterns, gas cans, and burnt wood are meant to symbolize the fire typically lit at night during lynchings. The rectangular structure is meant to represent what a coffin looked like in that time.
The jars hanging down, have each of the victim’s names on them, with soil from the location of the lynchings. “I don’t want people to come away from looking at it feeling bad. I don’t think you move forward feeling bad,” Keith said. Keith says the sculpture shows how far our communities have come, and how far they still need to go.
