Magnificent News: About US: Collecting soil to confront the history of lynched Black teens in Alexandria

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Candid conversations about identity in 21st-century America.

By Teo Armus

If there's one thing that Old Town Alexandria is known for, it's history. All over this picturesque riverfront neighborhood in Northern Virginia are reminders of the important role it played in the early United States: There's a church pew where George Washington worshiped and a tavern serving up colonial cuisine. Tour guides in tri-corner hats and stockings can often be seen leading tourists around on the weekends.

But absent from the brick-paved streets are any sign of one of the city's ugliest chapters: the brutal lynchings of two Black teenagers, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, just a few blocks away from Washington's old haunts.

As part of The Post's Metro staff, I write about all things Alexandria, including its ongoing and well-publicized efforts to grapple with the legacy of slavery. This port city grew off the sale of enslaved people and it's home to what was at one point the largest slave-trading operation in the United States.

Yet I was especially interested in writing about a soil-collection ceremony to commemorate McCoy and Thomas because their lynchings are practically obscured, even in a neighborhood that emphasizes history. Just as there are no physical markers remembering them in Old Town, they rarely make it into the story Alexandria tells about itself. It's not hard to see why: People in Alexandria — and across the country — are still trying to unearth details about how exactly these episodes of racial terror played out. Even McCoy's descendants, some of whom live nearby, grew up without knowing one of their ancestors had suffered such a horrific hate crime. The Equal Justice Initiative is pushing communities across the country to confront this history, and plenty of volunteers are stepping up to the plate. Next week, more than 160 city residents will be taking the jars of soil they filled to EJI's Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala. Some of McCoy's descendants will be joining them.

(Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

With scoop by scoop of soil, Alexandria remembers lynched Black teens

A soil-collection ceremony honored the lives of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, two Black teenagers who were lynched in Old Town Alexandria

By Teo Armus ● Read more »

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(Octavio Jones for The Washington Post)

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