AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) \u2014<\/span> In 2016, 89-year-old Opal Lee walked from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in hopes of establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday. Partly due to her efforts, it became one in 2021.<\/p>\n Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when the nation\u2019s last enslaved people in Texas learned of their freedom. The news arrived over two years after Abraham Lincoln\u2019s Emancipation Proclamation.<\/p>\n But for \u201cthe grandmother of Juneteenth,\u201d the holiday carries a grief more personal than for most living today. When she was 12 years old, her family moved into a predominantly white neighborhood in Fort Worth. Shortly after, on June 19, 1939, a mob of over 500 white residents burned the family\u2019s home down.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just another iteration of a lynching, in a way,\u201d said the Rev. Marcus A.L. Freeman III, senior pastor of the historic Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin. \u201cTo just take everything you work for and just burn it down.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. (RNS photo\/Chloe Landen)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Founded in 1865 by newly freed people, Wesley is one of Austin\u2019s oldest Black institutions. It\u2019s also home to the city\u2019s only lynching marker, which serves to document the history of lynching in America for current and future generations.<\/p>\n Installed in December 2017, the marker is one of over 80 such plaques erected across the nation by the Equal Justice Initiative\u2019s Community Remembrance Project<\/a>, which began placing the markers to help communities face the violent truths of their past. EJI also constructed the country\u2019s first lynching memorial, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice,<\/a>\u00a0in Montgomery, Alabama.<\/p>\n Bryan Stevenson, EJI\u2019s executive director, told RNS that Juneteenth is a time to celebrate emancipation but also to acknowledge continued harm. Despite the positive development in recognizing Juneteenth nationally, \u201cBlack people in this country were subjected to another century of torture violence.\u201d<\/p>\n For Stevenson, the work is a matter of faith. Drawing on his own religious community, Stevenson told RNS that people cannot claim to want \u201cheaven and redemption and salvation\u201d but be unprepared to acknowledge, repent or confess to anything. The fact that very few people can name a single Black lynching victim, he added, reveals how much work remains.<\/p>\n Several of EJI\u2019s lynching markers are placed on or near church properties. The Community Remembrance Project erects markers at locations where lynchings occurred, which in some cases have been churches. Yet in instances where very little is known about a lynching, the EJI has asked local Black churches to house the markers.<\/p>\n Black churches served as vital protective spaces for Southerners terrorized by lynchings near and far \u2014 which has made them appropriate homes for lynching history, Stevenson said.<\/p>\n That was the case for the marker at Wesley in Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plaque commemorates a triple lynching in August 1894 after a white child\u2019s death while in the care of a Black female domestic laborer. Without evidence or investigation, the woman and two Black men presumed to be accomplices were quickly arrested. A white mob then abducted the three from jail, took them to a neighboring city, tied them to stakes and shot them to death. No one was ever charged with their killings. The few surviving records suggest the victims were innocent.<\/p>\n A lynching marker from the Equal Justice Initiative\u2019<\/span>s Community Remembrance Project on the property of Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. (RNS photo\/Chloe Landen)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Their tragic story was not unique. From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, Texas was a leader in mob violence. The Tuskegee Institute<\/a> recorded 493 lynching victims in Texas between 1882 and 1968 \u2014 352 of whom were Black. Nationally, the same archive documented 4,743 people killed by lynching during that period \u2014 3,445 of them Black. But many lynchings went unreported, and the actual statistics are believed to be far higher.<\/p>\n Like the three individuals commemorated by Wesley\u2019s marker, many lynching victims were held in jails, often on false charges or scant evidence,\u00a0<\/span>when white mobs came for them. Law enforcement routinely served as willing accomplices and sometimes participated in lynchings.<\/p>\n In some cases, lynchings were communal spectacles that drew thousands and generated a tourist economy. The 1893 lynching of Henry Smith<\/a> in Paris, Texas, was attended by at least 10,000 white men, women and children. Bound to a 10-foot-tall scaffold bearing the word \u201cJUSTICE,\u201d Smith was tortured for nearly an hour before his body, still alive, was set aflame. Smith\u2019s bones, pieces of his clothing and photographs of his death became fiercely sought-after souvenirs.<\/p>\n No white person was ever convicted of lynching a Black American. And mob members did not conceal their identities when posing beside corpses they had lynched.<\/p>\n Several historians of religion have interpreted lynching as a form of Southern religious practice. Lynch mobs frequently conceived of their violence as divinely ordained justice and were known to praise God amid killings. The ritualized elements of lynching, including forced confessions, drawn-out physical torture and the exchange of relics in a post-lynching marketplace, bear unmistakable resemblances to religious ceremony.<\/p>\n Columns memorializing lynching victims at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala. (RNS photo\/Adelle M. Banks)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n And justifying it all were powerful mythologies of Black criminality, none more enduring than the myth of the \u201cBlack rapist.\u201d Though accusations of sexual assault were mostly false \u2014 and though rape in the South has historically manifested as a crime with Black women as the primary victims \u2014 the defense that lynching was necessary for the protection of white women outlived all others.\u00a0<\/p>\n These myths about Black criminality and inferiority trace their roots to enslavement, Stevenson said, allowing some to \u201cfeel moral and decent and Christian\u201d as they sold human beings and then lynched them decades later.<\/p>\n With this context, placing a lynching marker at a Black church carries theological weight, functioning as a counternarrative on sacred ground. For Wesley\u2019s church historian Arlene L. Youngblood, the symbolism is direct. \u201cWhen you put daylight on something that\u2019s ugly, something that\u2019s shameful,\u201d she told RNS, \u201cSatan has to run.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Youngblood, Wesley was the only Black church in Austin that agreed to take the EJI\u2019s marker. \u201cEven though it\u2019s a sad circumstance,\u201d Youngblood said it was an honor to be asked. And it took courage for Wesley\u2019s reverend at the time, Sylvester Chase, to say yes, she added.<\/p>\n Church historian Arlene L. Youngblood, left, and senior pastor the Rev. Marcus A.L. Freeman III at Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas<\/span>. (RNS photo\/Chloe Landen)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was a public acknowledgment (that) something has happened to us,\u201d Youngblood said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, Freeman, the current senior pastor, has observed that the marker engenders a discerning \u201creverence\u201d in those who walk by it, sometimes so totalizing that they don\u2019t turn their heads as he passes behind them. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to watch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Freeman sees those moments as an extension of what he calls Wesley\u2019s \u201cministry of presence\u201d and \u201cministry of information.\u201d The church has a long educational history rooted in the traditions of the Black church and the theological commitments of the United Methodist denomination. The lynching marker, in his view, is fully consistent with Wesley\u2019s tradition.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t learn our history,\u201d Freeman said, \u201cwe\u2019re likely to repeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s still happening \u2014 that\u2019s the killer,\u201d Youngblood added.<\/p>\n For many Black Americans, the history of lynching has never felt distant. Instances of racial terror were not isolated events but part and parcel of systemic racism and white supremacy. Lynchings\u2019 expansive violence reshaped the American landscape, leaving thousands dead and fueling the Great Migration of more than 6 million Southern Black refugees to the North and West, in addition to contributing to the continued disenfranchisement of African Americans.<\/p>\n As EJI research <\/a>has shown, communities where lynchings occurred are areas that remain disproportionately poor and highly incarcerated. The Center for Justice Research<\/a> has similarly demonstrated that states\u2019 lynching rates predict current poverty levels, which in turn emerge as the strongest predictor of incarceration. The national incarceration rate of Black Americans is six times the rate<\/a> of white Americans. Black people are also disproportionately sentenced to death<\/a>, particularly when the crime involves white victims.<\/p>\n Notably, the first piece of anti-lynching legislation to be signed into law was the<\/span> 2022 Emmett Till Antilynching Act<\/span><\/span><\/a>, which made lynching a federal hate crime. The victory came <\/span><\/span>decades after<\/span><\/span> <\/span>several failed attempts<\/span><\/span><\/a> in the early to mid-20th century.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Stevenson and Youngblood join countless others who understand the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery and far too many more as modern-day lynchings.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were victims of these presumptions of dangerousness and guilt because of their color,\u201d Stevenson said, adding these presumptions are themselves an enduring legacy of slavery\u2019s \u201cgreat evil\u201d \u2014 the false narrative \u201cthat somehow Black people aren\u2019t as good as white people or less human, less evolved, less decent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not yet free of that narrative,\u201d Stevenson said. \u201cThe work remains.\u201d<\/p>\n Vice President Kamala Harris welcomes Opal Lee to the stage during a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, June 13, 2023. Lee is considered the grandmother of Juneteenth. (AP Photo\/Susan Walsh)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Stevenson envisions America\u2019s 250th birthday, like Juneteenth, as an opportunity to celebrate but also to acknowledge persisting challenges and commit to overcoming them. The effort of installing lynching markers that draw people of diverse racial backgrounds together \u201cto talk about these tragic incidents of the past and to commit to a healthier future\u201d is, he said, \u201ca microcosm of what the whole nation must do.\u201d<\/p>\n Those at Wesley who shepherd Austin\u2019s only lynching marker are similarly sitting with the full weight of that paradox. Youngblood cited a lack of affordable housing, widespread homelessness, the school-to-prison<\/a> pipeline that disproportionately affects Black youth, deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and ongoing redistricting and gerrymandering as reasons for grief, not celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the best country in the world,\u201d Youngblood said. \u201cBut right now, this is not a pretty year to celebrate America.\u201d<\/p>\n Freeman has found inspiration from Opal Lee herself. In a recent Texas Co-op Power article<\/a>, Lee, now nearly 100 years old, laughed off the idea of retirement. \u201cPeople who are old can\u2019t sit in a rocking chair and wait for the Lord to come and get them,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s still plenty of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe struggle continues, as we say,\u201d Freeman concurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-Wesley-UMC-Austin2-277x369.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-Lynching-Marker1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/webRNS-Slavery-Montgomery4-073119.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-Arlene-Youngblood-Marcus-Freeman-20260617-277x369.jpg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/webRNS-Opal-Lee-Juneteenth1-061623.jpg\")
<\/p>\n