Soil Collection Ceremony to Take Place June 18
Palm Bech County Mayor Robert S Weinroth invites the community to attend a Soil Collection Ceremony for Mr. Sam Nelson which will be held this Saturday, June 18 at 10:30 A.M. during the Juneteenth Event at Pompey Park Gymnasium at 1101 NW 2nd St in Delray Beach.
This ceremony is hosted by the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project in collaboration with Palm Beach County, the City of Delray Beach, the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, AL, and Spady Cultural Heritage Museum.
The ceremony will remember Sam Nelson who was lynched on September 27, 1926.
Nelson was being held in the Delray Beach jail on a charge of attempted assault of a white woman in Miami. The next morning, the steel door of his cell was found battered open and Nelson’s body was found riddled with bullets on a canal bank west of Delray Beach. No one was held accountable for his murder.
During the ceremony, the Board of County Commissioners will present a Resolution Recognizing the Significance of the Federal Emmett Till Antilynching Act and Soil Collection Ceremony for Sam Nelson.
The soil recently collected near the site of the lynching will be put into glass jars and on display at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum and other sites around Palm Beach County.
To learn more about Sam Nelson and the Palm Beach County Community Remembrance Project, visit pbcremembrance.org.
