Soil Gathering Ceremony to Commemorate the 1894 Lynching of John Buckner in Valley Park

The St. Louis Community Remembrance Project, led by the Reparative Justice Coalition of St. Louis, is working with Equal Justice Initiative and other partners to address legacies of lynching in our region.

The Reparative Justice Coalition of St. Louis has organized a community event remembering the January 1894 lynching of John Buckner, a grandson of one of the earliest free Black settlers in St. Louis County. As part of its Community Remembrance Project with EJI, the soil gathering ceremony will involve the collection of soil from the site of the lynching and placement of the soil in jars provided by the Equal Justice Initiative. These jars of soil will be displayed in various memorial exhibits: in EJI’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Griot Museum here in St Louis, and in the Missouri Community Remembrance Project Exhibit at the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, MO. Several WashU students, staff, faculty, and alums volunteer with the Reparative Justice Coalition of St. Louis. To learn more about the coalition and to RSVP for this event visit: RJC-STL