6/23 Bus Trip to the Marker Dedication and Soil Collection Commemorating the Lynching of George White
Sunday, 6/23/2019, 9:30 am to 6:30 pm
Tickets: George White Marker Dedication & Bus Tour
The Milton Historical Society, The Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice & CAMP Rehoboth Bus Trip to the Marker Dedication and Soil Collection Commemorating the Lynching of George White
In conjunction with its newly opened exhibition “Walking into Greatness: Bryan A. Stevenson,” the Milton Historical Society in partnership with the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice and CAMP Rehoboth is offering a bus trip on Sunday, June 23, 2019, to the historical marker dedication commemorating the 1903 lynching of George White.
In 1903, George White was dragged from a workhouse where he awaited trial after being accused of attacking Helen Bishop. His lynching, one of the most horrific acts of racial terror in New Castle County, Delaware, took place before he could be tried in a court of law. In front of a crowd of thousands, Mr. White was burned alive. His bones were collected and sold as souvenirs. News of this heinous act was widespread and denounced by figureheads from around the world, including President Theodore Roosevelt.
Sixteen-year-old Savannah Shepherd, a Sanford High School junior, researched and developed the dedication ceremony, which will take place at the location of Mr. White’s 1903 lynching. The ceremony, sponsored by the Delaware Social Justice Remembrance Coalition and Senator Darius Brown, includes a soil collection by Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative.
The bus will leave the Milton Historical Society at 9:30 a.m. and guests will board the bus to return from Wilmington at 4:30 p.m. and make it back to Milton by 6:30 pm. Participants will be able to park at the Milton Historical Society or in the adjacent municipal lot.
The agenda for the day includes tours of the Corbit-Sharp House and Wilson-Warner House at Historic Odessa. Built in 1774, the Corbit-Sharp House was part of Delaware’s Underground Railroad network. Following a boxed lunch at Odessa’s Cantwell’s Tavern, which includes either a Chicken salad or Caprese-salad sandwich with water, chips, cookie, and fruit, included in the bus trip ticket price, participants re-board the bus to continue to the historical marker dedication in Wilmington.
- Tickets are $50 and include:
- Round-trip bus ride from Milton
- Tours of both the Corbit-Sharp and Wilson-Warner Houses
- Boxed-lunch at Cantwell’s Tavern (described above)
- The dedication ceremony and soil collection
Seats are limited.
Reservations must be made at historicmilton.org/events no later than Friday, June 14, 2019. The Milton Historical Society is located at 210 Union Street, Milton, DE 19968; phone: 302-684-1010.