Dear Editor,

To the Rev. Arthur Jones, the columnist,

I enjoy reading your viewpoint/opinions you have published in the Thomasville Times Enterprise paper in the Viewpoint/Opinions section. Subject, “We Shall be holy.”

Your recent article you wrote in Sunday’s paper, dated November 18, 2017, was well received, except the incorrect information about the Big Oak Tree, a 350-year-old tree located on the corners of N. Monroe and Crawford Street here in Thomasville, Ga.

Extract from your article for the readers of this paper, you wrote, “While my hometown is known for a few praiseworthy things, Thomasville also happens to be the home of the Big Oak-a 350-year-old tree listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. The Big Oak is a regional landmark located in downtown Thomasville.

“This tree is the only one I’m aware of with assigned human rights. No one is allowed to climb the Big Oak. For its protection, the Big Oak is under video surveillance. The limbs of this tree are supported by steel cables so they don’t collapse from their own weight. But the Big Oak has a secret history. From the late 19th century until the Civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Big Oak was used as a lynching tree. All manners of injustice were visited upon local African American men there, castrations, beatings, stabbings, and lynching. No crimes were committed by those men. They happened to be in the wrong place, in the wrong colored skin, at the wrong time. Thomasville was once one of Georgia’s most notorious sundown towns. While some names of those killed at the Big Oak are known, other victims’ name have been lost. This secret history is not taught in schools in Thomasville; mentioned to the visitor who make the pilgrimage to the tree; or even discussed in the local churches.”.

I do not know where you received your information about this Big Oak Tree being a lynching tree, but that is incorrect from my research as the curator/founder/historian of the Jack Hadley Black History Museum. I would appreciate if you could provide your documented proof and where it is documented to include the names you mention in your article, so that the community, including myself can be assure of what we put out to our community and visiting guest about the Historical Big Oak Tree that we share with our visitors.

Several years ago, when we were gathering information about submitting historical information about Dewey City to be place on the National Registry for Historical Places, Thomasville Landmarks and several other people, including myself interviewed several community citizens who lived in the Dewey City Community to obtain the history of that community. As you know, Dewey City Community received that honor and to be on the National Registry for Historic Places.

But in those interviews one person stated that, and I quote, “Just as the churches and schools were providing opportunities for African-American advancement during the era of ‘Jim Crow.’ there were also demonstrations against blacks within their own neighborhoods.

An oak tree, still standing on McKinley Street is the subject of local lore and a reminder to some of an era when whites terrorized blacks by hanging them on the tree and dragging them through the streets.”

Second, in Senator Eugene Anderson, who grew up in Dewey City, wrote in his book about his journey from the cotton fields to the Kansas State Senate, “Two blocks from our home stood a large oak tree with a large limb that stretched across McKinley Street with a chain around it. The chain was then so long that it grew into the limb. Stories spoken in hushed tones for many years when I grew up and passed down from generation to generation told of several lynching taking place at this tree.”

So, my wandering Rev. Jones, if you have miss-understood your history told to you about the location of Big Oak Tree, and the story was told about the lynching at big oak was the one on McKinley Street. This is the story that was told and documented in the report of the Dewey City historic document as the lynching big oak tree and not the Big Oak Tree downtown at the corners of Monroe and Crawford streets.

Again, in my research as the museum curator/founder and historian, in living here in the Thomasville for 81 years, minus 28 years in the United States Air Force (1956 to 1984), I have never seen any proof, documentation and no one has provided me any documentation about the Big Oak Tree in downtown as a lynching tree. So again Rev. Jones, please provide me your resources, names of people lynched you mention, and any other material we can archive in our Black History Museum.

I can be reached at jackhadleyblackhistorymuseum@rose.net, (229) 226-5029.

 

James “Jack ‘Hadley

President/Curator/Founder

Jack HadleyBlack History Museum