Roanoke Equal Justice Initiative are trying to honor the victims of the city’s lynchings in the 1890s

ROANOKE, Va. – They think that it is essential for a city to have a thorough understanding of its past, even the parts that aren’t spoken very often.

One of the main goals of the Roanoke Equal Justice Initiative is to tell the story of how African Americans helped make Star City what it is today.

The leader of the Equal Justice Initiative Community Remembrance Project, Dr. Brenda Hale, said that after three years of hard work, the group is now ready to share some of the facts they have found.

“Now we were ready for the community to know what we had been doing and for the community to know that we’re getting our first marker here in the city of Roanoke and that will be honoring the lynching of Mr. Thomas Smith,” Hale said.

On Thursday evening, members of the community and prominent members of the community gained knowledge about the lives of William Lavender and Thomas Smith. Both victims were African Americans, and they were executed by lynching in the city in the late 1890s.

Both of these individuals will soon have historical markers that will serve as a remembrance of the events that transpired. On September 21, exactly 129 years after Thomas Smith was lynched, a memorial to his life will be unveiled.

“The community … they don’t know all the struggles that black people have been through here,” Hale said. “It shouldn’t be paved over, concrete over, buried … it needs to be told because guess what, it’s in our D-N-A,” Hale said.

Councilman Bill Bestpitch joined Hale in pursuing these objectives with him. He made it quite obvious to all in attendance that the facts and the history are more important than the question of guilt.

“We’re not here to make anybody feel guilty. We’re not here to accuse anybody of anything. We’re here to bring truth to the table,” Bestpitch said.