About This Event
The Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project (Manasota Remembers) is dedicated to honoring the lives lost to racial terror lynching in our community. As part of this effort, we invite you to join us for a Soil Ceremony to remember six men – Henry Thomas, Sam Ellis, Wade Ellis, Mr. Ruddy, William English, and James Franklin – who were murdered in the Manasota area between 1903 and 1934. Soil collected from the sites where these men died will be transferred by community members into glass vessels to be held in remembrance. The jars will serve as a lasting tribute to their lives and a reminder of the injustices they suffered.
This event is free and open to the public. Space is limited; reservations are required.
The Boxser Diversity Initiative is honored to lead the Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project in partnership with the Manasota branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (Manasota ASALH), Newtown Alive, the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition (SAACC), and the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Alabama. Special thanks to the Sarasota NAACP Youth Council for their assistance in the collection of soil.
Launched in 2018, Manasota Remembers commemorates the lives of victims of racial terror in Southwest Florida. The first two phases of the project included a Racial Justice Essay Contest in March 2023 and the Dedication of a Lynching Memorial Marker in February 2024. The Soil Ceremony is the third and final phase of the project.
About This Event
The Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project (Manasota Remembers) is dedicated to honoring the lives lost to racial terror lynching in our community. As part of this effort, we invite you to join us for a Soil Ceremony to remember six men – Henry Thomas, Sam Ellis, Wade Ellis, Mr. Ruddy, William English, and James Franklin – who were murdered in the Manasota area between 1903 and 1934. Soil collected from the sites where these men died will be transferred by community members into glass vessels to be held in remembrance. The jars will serve as a lasting tribute to their lives and a reminder of the injustices they suffered.
This event is free and open to the public. Space is limited; reservations are required.
The Boxser Diversity Initiative is honored to lead the Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project in partnership with the Manasota branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (Manasota ASALH), Newtown Alive, the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition (SAACC), and the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Alabama. Special thanks to the Sarasota NAACP Youth Council for their assistance in the collection of soil.
Launched in 2018, Manasota Remembers commemorates the lives of victims of racial terror in Southwest Florida. The first two phases of the project included a Racial Justice Essay Contest in March 2023 and the Dedication of a Lynching Memorial Marker in February 2024. The Soil Ceremony is the third and final phase of the project.
Funding for this program is provided in part by the John J. Clopine Fund of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.
The Community Foundation of Sarasota County is a public charity founded in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council as a resource for caring individuals and the causes they support, enabling them to make a charitable impact on the community. With assets of $488 million in more than 1,580 charitable funds, the Community Foundation awarded grants and scholarships totaling $40 million dollars last year in the areas of education, the arts, health and human services, civic engagement, animal welfare and the environment. Since its founding, the Community Foundation has been able to grant more than $435.8 million to area nonprofit organizations to our community thanks to the generosity of charitable individuals, families, and businesses. For more information, visit www.CFSarasota.org or call (941) 955-3000.
This program is co-sponsored by Unitarian Universalists of Sarasota. For more information, visit www.uusrq.org or call (941) 371-4974.