Doria Johnson has lived with a scar her whole life. But on June 13 the U.S. Senate may have helped heal that wound with a resolution apologizing to lynching victims and their families for not enacting anti-lynching legislation in the past.
Johnson, 44, of Evanston, was there when the voice vote was called — a moment she had spent 15 years waiting for and one long overdue to her family, the descendants of Anthony P. Crawford, who was lynched in 1916.
“It feels pretty good,” she said. “We’ve always dreamed of telling his story.”
Crawford, Johnson’s great-great grandfather, was lynched in Abbeville, S.C., on Oct. 21, 1916. A wealthy black landowner, Crawford had been trying to sell his cotton in the market with the other growers. When he was offered a price 5 cents lower than what was offered to the white growers he got upset. Crawford was arrested for cursing a white man and put in the Abbeville jail. A mob of an estimated 200-400 people dragged him from the jail, hung him from a tree and shot him 200 times.
Johnson was first introduced to the story of “Grandpa Crawford” as a little girl, when she read a report from an NAACP investigation into Crawford’s death. Growing up, she said, she had always been curious about the man family members described as “dignified” and “a good citizen.”
In high school, Johnson said, she saw the movie “Roots” and was intrigued about African-American history.
“I thought, ‘We have a past,'” she said.
It wasn’t until 1990, though, that Johnson re-read the report and set out for the city that was the site of so much pain for her family.
“Grandpa Crawford was the secretary of the (Cypress Chapel A.M.E.) church (in Abbeville) and I called directory assistance and got the phone number of the church,” Johnson said, describing the beginning of her search. “When I called, my cousin Philip answered and he was the church secretary.”
That one contact opened Johnson up to a world of relatives she had never known. Many of these Crawfords were with her in Washington, D.C., for the passage of Resolution 39. The resolution apologized to lynching victims and their families for not passing legislation that would make lynching a federal crime. The legislation was filibustered in the Senate three times since 1922.
Johnson said she wasn’t sure that the resolution was going to pass when she first saw it.
“This country has never apologized to African-Americans for anything,” Johnson said.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., sponsored the bill with Sen. George Allen, R-Va., and worked closely with Johnson and other descendants of lynching victims.
“I don’t think that we would have guaranteed the same degree of public support and attention for this resolution that we had if it had not been for Ms. Johnson and other lynching victims’ descendants telling their stories and putting in the hours to draw attention to it,” said Adam Sharp, Medill ’00, a spokesman for Landrieu.
As of June 24, the resolution was co-sponsored by 89 senators, according to Landrieu’s Web site.
With the passage of the resolution came a media blitz around Johnson. Her itinerary while in Washington was filled with press junkets and it hasn’t stopped since she returned.
“I’ve gotten letters from around the world at this point,” Johnson said. She gave an interview to a reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the same day The Summer Northwestern interviewed her.
The next step in Johnson’s journey is to continue to tell her story and encourage others whose families were victims of lynchings to come forward. Johnson works with family members of other lynching victims such as the family of Emmett Till of Chicago. They are trying to find more people like themselves whose families were torn apart by lynchings.
“There were 5,000 documented lynchings,” Johnson said. “We want them to own their history…. Those undocumented lynchings, we want those families to come forward.”
Some families never talked about what happened in the past because it was too painful. Others, Johnson said she has discovered, didn’t speak of the events so they could protect their children and so their children would not grow up angry and full of hate.
Without Sanctuary, an exhibit of lynching photography currently at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark, is one way to start a dialogue, Johnson said.
Johnson has spoken many times at the historical society about her family’s diaspora and how the story of the lynchings is still evolving, Spokeswoman Anna Batcke said.
“It helps for visitors to see that the effect of lynching and racial violence in the country is still being felt,” Batcke said. “The work that Doria Johnson has done for victims and their families has helped to demonstrate how this is an ongoing process.”
Johnson is working on a book about Crawford and intends to travel to Ghana next summer to find more family members.
This fall, Johnson will lead a civil rights tour to Abbeville and through the south, stopping in Washington, Birmingham and Montgomery. The first stop will be in Abbeville on Oct. 21 for a biennial march to honor Crawford and 10 other victims of lynching from Abbeville.
Reach Elizabeth Kirk at [email protected].
