Lectures, documentary screening part of UTC series on racial violence

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Department of History is partnering with the University of the South in Sewanee to host the series “The Lynching of Ed Johnson in Chattanooga: A Critical Discussion of the History of Racial Violence in the U.S.”

Ed Johnson, an African-American from Chattanooga, was falsely convicted of raping a white woman and sentenced to death in 1906. When the U.S. Supreme Court intervened with a stay of execution, a mob of whites stormed the jail, took Johnson and hanged him from the Walnut Street Bridge.

Taking place on both campuses, events in this series include a documentary screening and lectures featuring Illinois State University’s Amy Wood, an award-winning historian and professor of post-Civil War American cultural history and the history of the South.

“We think this series can bring different intellectual communities together, share the historical knowledge about the Ed Johnson lynching to a larger audience and inspire awareness about continuing issues surrounding racial injustices in the Chattanooga area,” says Susan Eckelmann Berghel, assistant professor of history and director of Africana studies at UTC.

The series is sponsored by the Project on Slavery, Race & Reconciliation at the University of the South, the UTC History Department and Africana Studies Program and the Ed Johnson Project.

For more information, email Susan-Eckelmann@ utc.edu.