It's never too late to

put the pieces together.

THJ Statement on Recent Killings of Black Americans

June 01, 2020 

“The mission of Tennesseans for Historical Justice (THJ) is to uncover the truth about racial violence in Tennessee in order to achieve justice, conciliation, and healing across our state.”  THJ will investigate civil rights-related crimes including lynchings, bombings, mob attacks, and other acts of racial terrorism in our Tennessee history.  THJ will document findings and make them available to the Legislature.  THJ will also use these findings to educate Tennesseans and through education, work toward conciliation."

 

While our mission is focused on the past racial terrorism in our state and on educating people today regarding that violence, we cannot ignore that history is a precursor to violence against people of color today specifically but not limited to Black and Latino persons.  Our ultimate goal is to work toward conciliation, however, conciliation cannot occur when the violence has merely taken a new form.  When we tolerate any form of racially-based violence, we demonstrate that we have not really grown beyond the lynching and bombing violence of the past.

 

THJ voices our pain and outrage at recent unlawful killings of our Black neighbors in New Brunswick, Louisville, Minneapolis, and elsewhere.  We are compelled to point out that just as individual lynchings in our history were sanctioned by our society when we did nothing to stop them, the killings of Black people that have received national attention in recent weeks are sanctioned by the state and cannot afford inaction.  We join with a host of others to condemn the killings and to urge the end of police violence and racial violence in all of its forms.