HomeMy WebLinkAboutRES-2023-030-Resolution Apologizing for Past Racial Terror Lynching RES - 2023 - 030
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
RESOLUTION APOLOGIZING FOR PAST RACIAL TERROR LYNCHING
WHEREAS , racial terror lynching occurred with startling frequency across the United States in the aftermath
of the Civil War and from Reconstruction through the middle of the twentieth century; and
WHEREAS , lynching became a practice predominantly inflicted upon Black or African American men , women
and children by white individuals , vigilante mobs and law enforcement officers — to instill fear and to thwart the
social , economic and political advancement of Black people ; and
WHEREAS , on August 7 , 1869 , 19111,Iyear- old Washington Morrow and his older brother Nelson, both of whom
were African American farmworkers , were seized from the Hillsborough jail by a mob of masked klansmen ,
carried south of town , and then shot, with Washington dying from his wounds a few days later; and
WHEREAS , on September 6 , 1869 , Wright Malone , a Black farmer who was working alongside his father at the
family' s coal kiln, was abducted by four masked white men and hung near the banks of the Little River; and
WHEREAS , on October 14 , 1869 , Thomas Jefferson Morrow (whose son , Washington Morrow , was murdered
two months earlier) and his brother-in-law Daniel Morrow , both of whom were Black farmers working near
Hillsborough, were pulled from their family homes by a masked mob of Ku Klux Klan riders and hung; and
WHEREAS , on December 2 , 1869 , Cyrus Guy—a 20-year- old Afro - Indigenous farmer who had grown up in a
family emancipated long before the Civil War—was seized from his family farm by a mob of klansmen and hung
in a public site near the intersection of Faucette Mill Road and Lebanon Road; and
WHEREAS , on or about October 30 , 1898 , Manly McCauley, an 18 -year-old Black man , was seized by a mob of
white men , accused of eloping with a married white woman , and lynched from a dogwood tree near current day
Hatch Road and Old Greensboro Road , and the four men tried for the lynching were acquitted; and
WHEREAS , in denial of their constitutional rights to a fair trial , and without the opportunity to present their
defense , the afore-mentioned men were brutally executed ; and
WHEREAS , Orange County elected officials failed to safeguard Washington Morrow and failed to hold
accountable the killers of the six racial terror lynching victims ;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of Commissioners does hereby
acknowledge that criminal acts of racial terror lynching were committed against numerous named and unnamed
individuals , including Washington Morrow , Wright Malone , Daniel Morrow , Thomas Jefferson Morrow , Cyrus
Guy, and Manly McCauley; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of Commissioners now apologizes to all victims
of racial terror lynching in Orange County perpetrated or condoned by past Orange County elected officials ; and
BE IT MOREOVER RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of County Commissioners herewith expresses
our deepest sympathies to the families and descendants for all women and men who were murdered by racial
terror lynching, and for the denial of their dignity and basic human rights .
This the 18th day of April , 2023 . e
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Ja ezetta Bedford , Chair
I Orange County Board of Commissioners