In this podcast, leaders of The Ed Johnson Project, along with a McCallie history teacher, discuss the story of Ed Johnson, who was lynched on Chattanooga’s Walnut Street Bridge more than a century ago, and the five-year effort by community volunteers that has resulted in a memorial being placed near the bridge to commemorate Mr. Johnson and the attorneys who defended him.

The podcast also discusses the role the Rev. T.H. McCallie, one of the founders of McCallie, played in trying to prevent the lynching and how he offered shelter on the school’s campus to one of the attorney’s families. And it discusses how McCallie history teachers use the Ed Johnson story to inspire McCallie students to be responsible citizens in their communities.

Participating in the podcast are:
Donivan Brown, president of the Ed Johnson Project;
Eleanor McCallie Cooper, great-granddaughter of the Rev. T.H. McCallie, and a member of the Ed Johnson Project;
Mel Cooper, former McCallie Vice President of Development, and a member of the Ed Johnson Project;
Bart Wallin ’99, who, with David Levitt ’94, teaches the Ed Johnson story as part of their 8th-grade history classes.

Links mentioned in the podcast:
The to documentary video on Ed Johnson by Linda Duvoisin: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1730677540326112
PDF of anti-lynching sermon delivered in 1883 by the Rev. Dr. T.H. McCallie (courtesy of Eleanor McCallie Cooper): https://www.mccallie.org/fs/resource-manager/view/05341ae6-0c51-44d0-86e4-52b7c148c9de
The Ed Johnson Project website, with a schedule of events for the weekend of the memorial dedication: https://www.edjohnsonproject.com/
The book, Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching that Launched 100 Years of Federalism by Mark Curriden and Leroy Phillips Jr., published 1999 by Faber and Faber, Inc., New York, available through most booksellers.

The Resiliency of Boys

Stories from the Ridge, The McCallie PodcastBy McCallie SchoolApr 08, 2021