photo by: Tatum Goetting

A crowd sings "Lift Every Voice and Sing" on Friday, June 10, 2022, near Lawrence City Hall at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence.

In 1882, a mob of about 100 white men took Pete Vinegar, Isaac King and George Robertson from their jail cells and lynched them from the Kansas River bridge.

But on Friday, 140 years to the day since the lynching, a different kind of crowd gathered.

On the bank of the Kansas River, with a remaining stone pillar from the old bridge obscured in brush, about 100 men and women of all races came together to commemorate the lynching. Together, they said the names of Vinegar, King and Robertson, the three Black men whom the mob lynched in the early morning hours of June 10, 1882. Together, they watched as a marker for the lynching was unveiled.

The attendees overflowed the folding chairs set out, and some sat on the grass, while others listened from the bridge above, as Ursula Minor, president of the Lawrence branch of the NAACP, welcomed them to honor the men.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

Ursula Minor, president of the Lawrence branch of the NAACP, speaks on Friday, June 10, 2022, at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence.

“We are here today to honor them standing together as a community,” Minor said. “I want to reiterate standing together, which is something that could not and did not happen in 1882 because Black people were in fear of their lives. Standing together as a community to honor Pete Vinegar, Isaac King and George Robertson 140 years later is monumental.”

Minor and others who spoke said that although the event happened in the past, the history of racial terror had to be recognized in order to prevent injustices today. More than 4,400 documented racial terror lynchings occurred in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative.

The Lawrence branch of the NAACP has been working since 2019 with the Equal Justice Initiative, which created a national lynching memorial in Montgomery, to erect a historical marker at the site of the lynching and take other steps to commemorate the victims. The NAACP spearheaded the formation of a local coalition, the Community Remembrance Project coalition, for the project.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

The Rev. Verdell Taylor speaks on Friday, June 10, 2022, near Lawrence City Hall at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence. The three men were Isaac King, George Robertson and Pete Vinegar.

The Rev. Verdell Taylor asked those gathered to remember what happened and reflect on what it continues to represent.

“So let us not forget the things that happened at this bridge in 1882,” Taylor said. “What happened here at this spot was truly appalling.”

The marker, placed higher on the river bank where passersby can see it, tells how King and Robertson, who had been living temporarily with the Vinegar family, discovered a white man sexually assaulting Vinegar’s 14-year-old daughter Margaret “Sis” Vinegar and came to her defense. All three men as well as Margaret were later arrested after the white man’s body was found in the river.

“These three Black men died from hanging because they defended a 14-year-old Margaret Vinegar, a child,” Taylor said. “Do you hear me — a child — who was being raped. They were not given a trial, but were lynched. I say, let us remember.”

King, Robertson and Margaret were accused without evidence of conspiring to rob the man, and Vinegar was taken into custody when the others were apprehended at his house, even though he was never charged with a crime, according to records previously reviewed by the Journal-World. The marker notes that the bodies of the men were left hanging until the next morning, further terrorizing the Black community. The mob threatened but did not ultimately lynch Margaret. However, an all-white jury convicted her, and she died of tuberculosis in prison at the age of 20.

Taylor said the community needed to work together to prevent modern-day lynchings. He said Lawrence had racial problems in 1882, and it has problems today, and the community needs to do something to make change.

“We must change our attitudes to truly respect one another so this doesn’t happen again,” Taylor said. “Let us remember that change can only come when we acknowledge the wrongs of the past and work together to change our future so we don’t have modern-day lynchings.”

Taylor listed Black men and boys who have been killed in recent years: Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice and George Floyd. He listed other racially motivated killings, such as the mass shooting last month in Buffalo and the shooting at a church in Charleston in 2015.

Others who spoke Friday included Mayor Courtney Shipley, coalition member and Vice Mayor Lisa Larsen, coalition coordinator Kerry Altenbernd, and Rep. Barbara Ballard, who closed the event by leading the crowd in singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Shipley said it was not just the responsibility of the NAACP or the coalition to raise awareness, but the community as a whole.

“I hope the marker is the beginning,” Shipley said.

As the unveiling event came to a close, some attendees prepared to head to Oak Hill Cemetery for an informal gathering at the approximate grave sites of the three men, where they lie without headstones in the Potter’s Field. Lawrence resident KT Walsh, a member of the Lawrence NAACP, was among those who gathered at the cemetery. Walsh said the community had to face what happened.

“To me, it’s important to be honest with ourselves,” Walsh said. “We like to carry the illusion that we’re all good and lovely people, but we all carry a dark side and in order to heal, we have to face it.”

After the unveiling, Marianne Barnard also planned to head to the cemetery. Barnard said the most important thing about the event was the gathering, the coming together of all the attendees to “bring what happened to consciousness.”

“Because everywhere people just want to shut down what has been, and if you shut down what has been, like (Taylor) said, then you don’t pay attention to what is now,” Barnard said. “And this gathering brings that, asking us, what do we do now?”

— Journal-World reporter Tatum Goetting contributed to this story.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

A historical marker commemorating the three Black men lynched in Lawrence in 1882 is pictured Friday, June 10, 2022, outside of City Hall.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

Bundles of flowers lie in the Potter’s Field section of Oak Hill Cemetery on Friday, June 10, 2022, in the approximate grave sites of three Black men who were lynched in Lawrence in the summer of 1882. The three men were Isaac King, George Robertson and Pete Vinegar.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

A crowd turned out on Friday, June 10, 2022, for the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

Lawrence City Commissioner Amber Sellers speaks on Friday, June 10, 2022, at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence.

photo by: Tatum Goetting

Ryan Brown, the first-place winner of the Racial Justice Essay Contest, reads her essay, titled “Disposable,” on Friday, June 10, 2022, at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the 1882 lynching of three Black men in Lawrence. Brown wrote the essay when she was a senior at Free State High School.