BY MASTON MORWICK
A plan to install markers at the sites of lynchings in Volusia County sparked some tension among members of the DeLand City Commission at their Feb. 17 meeting.
The Volusia Remembers Coalition, a community partner of the Equal Justice Initiative, plans to install a marker in DeLand, and needs the city’s approval to use public rights of way.
Volusia Remembers spokesman Reggie Williams described the plan to install the markers to honor and acknowledge Jim Crow-era victims of lynchings. Williams said the mission is to bring honor to the victims of racial terror, to educate the public about the past, and to cultivate healing.
The Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama would cover the cost of manufacturing and installing the markers. The DeLand markers would be among five planned, with the others in Daytona Beach and Osteen.
The markers would have two-faced plaques detailing the history of the lynching, and they would be the first lynching memorial markers in Volusia County.
City Commissioner Kevin Reid worried about the verbiage that would go on the markers, and whether it could be divisive in nature.
“It emphasizes certain aspects, and minimizes other aspects,” Reid said.
He suggested reprinting the original news articles, rather than paraphrasing them.
Original articles on the documented lynchings in Volusia — one of which occurred near the intersection of Rich and Clara avenues in the heart of DeLand — can be found on the Volusia Remembers website at volusiaremembers.org.
Vice Mayor Jessica Davis disagreed, referencing the bias of the original newspaper article published on Volusia Remembers.
The 1891 article, published in the Florida Agriculturalist, refers to Lee Bailey as a “negro ravisher” in the headline, and uses dated and discriminatory descriptors common at the time.
“The website highlights some hearsay that I’m not in particular willing to put on a headstone, that might bring dishonor to the family,” Davis said. “I would be comfortable with moving forward with the verbiage presented rather than pulling an article that may have been biased.”
Mayor Chris Cloudman approved of the idea of the historical markers, but said the Volusia Remembers Coalition needs to discuss revisions to the suggested wording before moving forward with its right-of-way application.
Williams told The Beacon that the group has subsequently met with Reid to go over his concerns. For example, Williams said, in the original proposal, the marker text proposed by Volusia Remembers would include quotes from the newspaper articles from the time, such as that 75-100 people had attended the lynching — Reid suggested that number be changed to “a large group.”
“It’s hard history. Our view is we have to report the history as accurately as possible,” Williams said. “I appreciate Commissioner Reid, his position, and the opportunity to really talk to him.”
Restoring and renewing community relationships is part of the process of Volusia Remembers, Williams said.
“Regardless of the outcome, we understand his position. We have to have the hard conversations in order to reach reconciliation,” Williams said. “The intent of the entire project is to bring some honor to an individual who was victimized, not even given the opportunity to even be tried in the court of law.”
Volusia Remembers plans to bring the marker proposal before the City Commission, which must vote on whether to approve a permit for the marker, at the regular commission meeting April 7.
Lee Bailey
Lee Bailey was lynched in DeLand by a mob of white men in the early-morning hours of Sept. 27, 1891. His body, riddled with bullets, hung from an oak tree in the middle of West Rich Avenue in DeLand near Clara Avenue, only a block away from the jail he was kidnapped from, and only half a block from what was once the Black neighborhood known as Bermuda Bottom.
Bailey, a Black laborer, was accused of sexually assaulting the wife of a prominent white businessman, J.R. Wetherell.
“[Lynching] is done throughout the country, and it is the only safe-guard for the protection of our wives and daughters,” the Volusia County Record stated in their article about the murder.
In racial terror lynchings, charges against Black men for sexual assault of white women were a common justification.
According to news reports, Bailey had worked for the Wetherells over the summer. Mrs. Wetherell identified Bailey as the one who had assaulted her by his hair and his shirt, and scarring on his arm. A justice of the peace announced the results of the interview with Mrs. Wetherell to the public, who were immediately incensed.
Anticipating trouble, the sheriff at the time, Jefferson Kurtz, had decided to spend the night in the jail.
Around 1 a.m., a mob of men broke into the jail, and tied up Sheriff Kurtz, shrouding his head in a blanket. The sheriff would testify he was unable to identify any of the men, but estimated their numbers to be at least a hundred.
The men kidnapped Bailey. Kurtz heard a “volley of gunfire.” Bailey’s body would be taken some 250 yards away, and hung from a limb of an oak near Rich and Clara avenues.
“It was a ghastly sight that early risers in DeLand gazed upon Sunday morning,” the Florida Agriculturalist newspaper reported, under the headline “A JUST FATE!”
— Eli Witek, in an article published in the Oct. 6-12, 2021, edition of The Beacon EXTRA!, using information from Stetson University Grants & Sponsored Research Assistant Director Sidney Johnston, and newspaper articles appearing in the September 1891 editions of the Florida Agriculturalist, the Volusia County Record and the Jacksonville Evening Telegram.
