A memorial marker of John Evans who was lynched in 1914 in St. Petersburg.
A two-year-long project was finally unveiled this week in St. Petersburg honoring the victims of lynchings in the area.
A marker unveiled in St. Petersburg this week doesn’t just commemorate African-Americans lynched in the past, but also tries to educate people today about the city’s history.
The memorial, which is located near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street and Second Ave. S. Is the work of two groups coming together.
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a non-profit organization that provides legal representation to the wrongfully convicted, teamed up with Pinellas Remembers, a group dedicated to uncovering the racial terror caused by lynchings in America.
Updated Mar. 2
Warning: The descriptions in this story and a photograph of a public lynching are graphic and disturbing.
Six years ago, a crew replacing light poles on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street found an engraved metal plate. It was a few feet off the ground, blackened with graffiti and hidden behind a planter bursting with bird of paradise, almost invisible.
âAt this intersection, Nov. 12, 1914, John Evans a black laborer from Dunnellon was lynched,â it said, âcondemned by a secret council of 15 of St. Petersburgâs most influential citizens, he was then turned over to a mob of 1,500 white residents and murdered.â