142 years after the lynching of Charlotte Harris, her name was finally given due memory on a new historical marker commemorated Saturday at Court Square in downtown Harrisonburg. The marker is part of a larger goal to promote collective memory around painful local history, previously dismissed.

At the marker’s unveiling event, Gianluca De Fazio, Ph.D., from JMU’s Department of Justice Studies, gave context on Harris’ murder. “Charlotte Harris was an African American woman, who in 1878, was accused of instigating the burning of a barn. She was captured, she was put in [jail]… and awaiting her trial she was taken from the jailers and hung to a tree. Her body was left dangling for a few days.”

However, the story of her lynching doesn’t give a full picture of the story of her life. “We don’t know her age. We don’t know if she was married. We don’t know if she had any children,” De Fazio said. “The only piece of personal information we were able to gather is that she was a former slave. We have conducted genealogical research to identify possible descendants, but… that investigation was fruitless, unfortunately.”

Stephen Thomas, community organizer and activist who works with Harrisonburg’s Northeast Neighborhood Association (NENA), further contextualized her story. She was “lynched in 1878, just over 10 years after chattel slavery was abolished in the United States,” and just a year after “what today is sometimes referred as the Compromise of 1877.” 

“Simple and plainly put,” explained Thomas, “[the Compromise of 1877] was an agreement on behalf of the then-president of the United States that there would be no further northern interference into the mistreatment, abuse and oppression of Black people in the South, and it did not take long at all for this message… to reignite the racism and barbarity combined that ultimately led to the lynching of our ancestor, Ms. Charlotte Harris.”

The placement of the historical marker on Court Square is also significant. The crime jury that, according to Thomas, allowed Ms. Harris’ murderers to “escape accountability,” happened at the courthouse on-site. “While the lynching happened some 12, 13 miles from here,” said De Fazio, “this is the place where justice failed Charlotte Harris. Where justice failed the… community.”

These acts of violence do affect entire communities, as Colita Fairfax, Ph.D., chair of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) explained. “We should acknowledge that entire families are victims of lynching. Whole communities were victims of lynching.”

Thomas said this brutality against entire communities is ongoing. “African Americans in the United States continue to be the victims of both white supremacist vigilante violence, and the violence and brutality of the modern-day heirs of institutional corruption.” He cited “those licensed professionals who we must repeatedly watch captured on video using Black women, men and children as nothing less than target practice” and that “African Americans in the United States are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites,” with  “African American women… incarcerated at twice the rate of white women.”

The historical marker serves as a challenge to the attempt at erasing memory of such violence, both past and present. “We have expunged from our official history and collective memory the fact that racialized terrorism was a fact of life in Virginia and the rest of the South,” said De Fazio. “By honoring the memory of Charlotte Harris with a marker, we are… promoting a counter-narrative that is not only historically much more accurate, but, critically, also a more just and inclusive one.”

Collective memory is important for all people in the community, including students who may only call Harrisonburg home for a few years, De Fazio explained. “When students come here to study, they become, even if only for a few years, members of this community and thus they should be aware of its history.”

Maria Menjivar, a first-year, watched the livestream of the event with a small group of other EMU students. “I think it’s important for EMU students to know her story because many people tend to think this type of history is far away from us,” she said. “Many people still face generational trauma and continued racism to this day.”

Now, when students pass through downtown, Harris’ historical marker serves as a visible reminder of the history of this community. “This marker adds a face to Ms. Harris…this marker humanizes her,” said Fairfax. “But our work here is not done. Memory work never is, and this is memory work. We have to continue to humanize her.”

Thomas dedicated the historical marker “to every single Black woman in the commonwealth of Virginia and all 50 states of the union, and indeed around the world. This is for you, sisters.”