GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. (FOX Carolina) – When most people recall the lynching era in Greenville, the story of Willie Earle comes to mind. Earle, a 25-year-old black man, was lynched in 1947 after being accused of stabbing a taxi driver, despite questions over how much evidence actually linked Earle to the killing.
Earle’s death is believed to be the last racial lynching in South Carolina, but it was not the first. One group is working to make sure other names are not lost to history.
The Community Remembrance Project started back in 2019 after co-chairs Ellen Stevenson and Feliccia Smith attended a presentation by the Equal Justice Initiative [EJI]. The EJI has worked to document victims of racial terror across the country, including in South Carolina. By scanning contemporary news sources, court records, and historical archives, the EJI was able to identify stories that had never been common knowledge…