Letter: Port Jervis Racial Justice Group Dissolves; the Work Continues
By John Kinney
History is buried, disregarded or neglected at society’s peril, for it, alone, teaches us how we got where we are, why we live the way we do and how we can use the past to improve the present and the future. If we ignore, hide or cast history aside it can, has been and will be resurrected. Ask Ralph Drake. Ask Robert Eurich.
Port Jervis native Drake for years walked an often-lonely June 2 vigil tracing the steps of a lynch mob that seized, brutalized and killed an innocent local black man – Robert Lewis – on that date in 1892. It was a sensational, nationally publicized event at the time.
Along with Lewis, it was then slowly buried and mostly forgotten.
For years, Drake, accompanied by a few others, was figuratively carrying a candle in the dark. Then, at his behest, another Port Jervis native, racial equality activist, Robert Eurich, now a Binghamton area resident, took Klieg lights and, with his expertise and recruitment of other like-minded folks, brightly illuminated that history so many others, including high school students, could, indeed, learn and benefit from it.
Now, its primary mission accomplished, The Friends of Robert Lewis, the racial justice group Eurich vitalized to help bring local, regional and national attention to the lynching is dissolving.
It was a broad-based racial justice group whose mission was to “preserve the memories of Robert Lewis and other victims of lynching in New York State...draw attention to these historic injustices recognizing their connection (and importance) to the ongoing struggle for racial equality in the United States of America.”
In a few short years, Eurich and others:
Worked with the New York State Governor to erect a Robert Lewis historical marker at the lynching site on East Main Street and secure another for Newburgh lynching victim, Robert Mulliner, while garnering widespread media attention.
Organized the historic June 2, 2022 Robert Lewis remembrance walk and historical marker dedication, which included broad community representation from kindred Hudson Valley organizations, the NAACP, local high school students, the general public, mayors from all of the county's three cities, clergy, esteemed guest spokespersons and a libation ceremony conducted at the lynching site.
On that day, three Port Jervis High School students were awarded cash prizes from an essay contest sponsored by the Friends of Robert Lewis. Shortly thereafter, two modest honorariums were extended to the choral and drum groups that had voluntarily added much to the meaningful and moving occasion.
Coinciding with the marker dedication, two well-received books about the Robert Lewis lynching were published. One was “A Lynching At Port Jervis” by noted historian and nationally respected writer Philip Dray and another by Port Jervis author Michael Worden -- “Lynched By A Mob.”
During the pandemic, the historic Port Jervis Free Library hosted a virtual panel discussion arranged with the authors and learned Friends' Charles Edwards, PhD
and Kristopher Burrell, PhD that was the best attended of its kind.
In 2023 the Friends launched an initiative calling attention to an abandoned potters' field burial ground in Port Jervis called "God's Acre" that was located near what was once a largely segregated Black community. This project included a ground penetrating radar survey conducted by the United States Dept. of Agriculture in which almost 40 Port Jervis high school students and their teacher escorts participated.
A God's Acre historical marker from a Pomeroy Foundation grant applied for by the Minisink Valley Historical Society is now being manufactured with installation expected late this spring or early summer.
Another member, Phylis Stigliano, collected soil in Port Jervis to represent Robert Lewis in a display at the Equal Justice Initiative's National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. She also put together a list of grants of potential use for Black history and cemetery preservation that was distributed to a number of relevant Hudson Valley groups and organizations including the Wickham Methodist Church, the oldest Black church in Port Jervis.
Dr. Charles Edwards (left) reviews his introductions list as walk organizer Robert Eurich (right) reflects on words offered by a local clergyman at the 2021 Robert Lewis ceremony. Photo by John Kinney
A Pressing Need for Civic Engagement
Eurich recently noted in a statement to Friends supporters, “Clearly, while our enduring work has been successfully achieved, there is now a pressing need for continuing civic engagement in not only the matters that brought us together but, among many others, the preservation of Constitutional rights, rule of law, education, global stability, and any number of vital programs and services.”
“Needless to say, what we did at the right moment in time would be much more difficult if not impossible today,” Eurich said. “For instance, our member who researched the grants list recently shared that the National Trust, a key source of the grants, has been defunded. This is only one of the many chaotic, harmful regressions and aggressions that have been wrought on not only our Friends of Robert Lewis members and nation but a great deal of the whole world.
“Finally, there are no words to adequately express the immense joy and satisfaction that working with others of like mind on our efforts has brought me. It has been my distinct, genuine honor and privilege to be part of our efforts and one of the most memorable and meaningful experiences of my life.”
The Walk, and the Work, Continue
The dissolution of the Friends group will not impede the remembrance walk. Drake, who long kept the memory of Robert Lewis alive, will again be leading the June 2 remembrance walk. Eurich and others will solemnly tread that path with him past three churches and the residence of Stephen Crane’s brother (author of the “Red Badge of Courage”). The march is expected to step off at 4:30 pm from its usual starting place by the Port Jervis City Hall, 20 Hammond St. Any changes and/or additional information can be found on Drake’s Friends of Robert Lewis Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/1892RobertLewis/
This will be a good day to show and sow solidarity for racial justice and equality and “to help form a more perfect Union.”
(Port Jervis native John Kinney is a retired newspaper writer, legislative correspondent, editor, publisher and corporate executive. He now lives in the Town of Wallkill.)
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