Sacred Soil

This image shows a glass jar filled with soil collected from the site of Jesse Washington’s lynching in Waco, Texas, in 1916. The jar is part of a powerful memorial installation at The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, which honors victims of racial terror lynchings across the United States. Each jar bears the victim’s name along with the date and location of their lynching, preserving both individual memory and collective history. Jesse Washington’s jar stands among hundreds of others, offering a tangible, solemn reminder of his life and the brutal public lynching that galvanized national outrage and helped fuel the anti-lynching movement.