At an emotional ceremony honoring victims of lynching in Montgomery County, Maryland, the descendant of one of the attackers apologized for her ancestor’s actions.
On Friday, the county officially completed a memorial for the victims as it continues to grapples with a horrific chapter in its history. In the late 1800s, white mobs lynched three Black men who’d been accused of crimes they insisted they didn’t commit.
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WATCH HEREWhen Bobbie Legg found her great-grandmother’s memoir, it was a portal into a painful past.
"I discovered that my ancestors led a brutal attack and murder of an innocent man, Mr. Sidney Randolph," she said.
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In 1896, Randolph had just arrived in Montgomery County when a group of white men accused him of murder. Randolph maintained he was innocent, but a white mob dragged him from the Rockville jail and beat and lynched him.
Among the people in that mob was Alec Carlyle, Bobbie Legg’s great-great-uncle.
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"I extend my most heartfelt apology for the egregious hate crime that was committed and took the life of Mr. Sidney Randolph," Legg said.
Randolph’s murder was one of three documented lynchings of Black men in Montgomery County.
The former jail in Rockville where he and another man, John Diggs-Dorsey, were lynched is now the county council building.
"As a Black man, I think of that often walking in here," Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando said. "… I think about not only that it happened, but the psychology of the people who participated in it, and the permissive nature of this community that allowed for it to happen."
In 2019, the county formed the Commission on Remembrance and Reconciliation. Volunteers collected soil at each site where the lynchings took place to honor three lives cut cruelly short.
"These were not just murders; these were messages meant to instill fear, to assert control and to erase the dignity of Black life," said Jason Green, chair of the commission.
The memorial now includes a bench where people can sit and reflect as the county vows to never forget the horrors that happened there.
"I believe we can build a more just society by actively supporting mental health care, education, financial resources, and homeownership of those adversely affected, both directly and indirectly by racial terror," Legg said.
