Friends of Robert Lewis Group Connects with NAACP on Lynching Victim Memorial
Friends of Robert Lewis met last week on Zoom with National Association for Advancement of Colored People Newburgh and Highland Falls chapter members Sabrina Dolfinger and Ray Harvey, who is president. The gathering was a step toward having an Equal Justice Initiative local monument to memorialize Robert Lewis, who was lynched by a mob in Port Jervis in 1892. The event brought the city national notoriety and local shame for racist violence, according to historians of the incident, Michael Worden, of Port Jervis, and Philip Dray, of Brooklyn.
“Maybe we can have a county community remembrance,” said Robert Eurich, organizer of the Friends group. “Whether or not we’re affiliated with EJI, we can follow their guidance on community engagement and education. Our alignment with EJI is secondary to the work we do.”
Movies, readings, group discussions, historical walks and plays would likely be among the activities offered, he said, noting that he is in communication with EJI representatives about the possibility.
EJI was started by attorney Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, his memoir about his experiences defending mostly Black death row inmates, including children, unfairly tried and harshly sentenced. EJI created the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery with 800 steel slabs, coffin-like, each commemorating lynching victims in a particular county. When a community where a lynching occurred has taken certain steps toward memorializing the victim, EJI partners with them to place a monument there.
Eurich and his Friends cohorts have that goal, but one requirement, that the community group be guided by Black leadership remains unmet, although two local Black men now participate, Travis Brown, a youth league sports coach, and Charles Edwards, a high school and college teacher in New York City. The group first formed in 2019, inspired by the EJI Memorial. They were re-energized by the Black Lives Matter march in 2020, Eurich said. Currently, however, Port Jervis has a population that is 6% Black, and city youth tend to leave Port Jervis after high school for opportunities elsewhere, he said.
Eurich, who grew up in Port Jervis but now lives near Binghamton, has been concerned about racism in Port Jervis since his boyhood, when he discovered the lynching history, past segregation and continuing evidence of racism. He recently organized a well-attended Port Jervis Free Library Zoom program with experts Dray, Worden and Kristopher Burrell, of Manhattan, discussing the 1892 lynching—what happened, what conditions led to it and what related conditions linger, hosted by Edwards. Dray and Worden will soon publish books on the incident.
Worden is finishing a book investigating who was responsible for hanging Robert Lewis, as the jury determination, after what Worden described as a sloppy trial, was “persons unknown.” Worden said he was horrified by the mob assault on a locally familiar person, likely terrifying the Black community. Lewis had been a likable man whose job was to drive a coach that carried travelers back and forth from the train station to a hotel, Worden said.
Pulitzer-nominated author Philip Dray, of Brooklyn, is examining the historical conditions surrounding the lynching.
Charles Edwards, a part-time Port Jervis resident who teaches in a college and high school in New York City, hosted the library event and also attended the meeting with EJI and NAACP representatives. Travis Brown, who recently ran for Port Jervis Common Council, was there too, as was Port Jervis community activist Jack Austin.
Newburgh also has a lynching in its history, on June 21, 1863, on a courthouse lawn.
“The victim, Robert Mulliner, was in prison for an alleged assault on an Irishwoman, and an Irish mob broke him out of jail and lynched him. It may have inspired the 1863 draft riots,” said Eurich.
In those New York City July riots, men angry about being drafted for the Civil War, while also competing with Black workers for jobs, hung children as they killed about 120 Black people, said Eurich. Similarly, tensions resulting from an economic decline preceded the 1892 lynching of Robert Lewis, also accused of sexual assault of a white woman.
Friends of Robert Lewis have launched a GoFundMe collection to pay for a historic marker to memorialize Robert Lewis, Eurich said. The intention is that acknowledging past mistakes and the dynamics underlying them will illuminate the present, where old attitudes linger.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/funds-to-memorialize-1892-black-lynching-victim
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