On June 19—known widely as Juneteenth—a group of about 60 people from The Diocese of West Missouri traveled to Pierce City. The visit was part of a multi-city pilgrimage to sites in Missouri where lynchings of African Americans took place.
According to Shirley Bolden, one of the trip’s organizers, the pilgrimage grew out of a prior journey to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama, also known as the National Lynching Memorial. There, participants photographed every Missouri lynching memorialized on site. That powerful experience inspired church leaders to begin visiting those locations in person, starting with a trip to Springfield that drew 250 participants—many local—despite having to navigate resistance from city officials.
Since then, the group has visited sites in Liberty and Kansas City. Bolden, who had seen the documentary Banished (which revisits Pierce City’s violent racial past), had also traveled to the area during a visit to the George Washington Carver National Monument in Neosho. Curious to learn more, she found Murray Bishoff’s name through an online search and asked him to speak to the group. He agreed.
We gathered at City Hall in Pierce City, next to the site where one African American man was executed by a mob in 1901, and within sight of the home across the railroad tracks where two of his family members died.
Among those present were around 20 Episcopal clergy people, members of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City—the only historically African American parish in the diocese—friends from Jamaica, and other Episcopalians. This growing movement of remembrance and reconciliation is grounded in work the Episcopal Church began more than 12 years ago, when it mandated anti-racism training and organized diversity teams across the country. The pilgrimage to Alabama and these follow-up site visits is the fruits of that effort. Next year, the group plans to travel to Maryville.
At the Springfield visit, a representative from the NAACP offered an overview of the 1906 lynching there and explained how African American homes were burned during the mob violence. Bishoff’s presentation in Pierce City offered something slightly different—historical context reaching back to 1848, when the first African Americans arrived in the region. As he shared from his research (available at MurrayPress.com), he detailed how years of racial tension culminated in the murder of Gisela Wild on August 18, 1901—an act that ignited an already volatile situation.
After our time in Pierce City, the group visited the Carver Monument and concluded their day with a service at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Joplin. That site was chosen because the location of the 1903 Joplin lynching, once outside the old city jail, is no longer accessible. At the church, participants prayed a “Litany of Lament at the Site of a Lynching,” written by Bishop Deon Johnson of The Diocese of Missouri, naming victims aloud and calling for justice.
Included in the litany was a quote from Pan-African journalist and entrepreneur Marcus Garvey:
“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.”
The service concluded with this collective commitment:
“O God of hope and Giver of Life; we pledge ourselves to care for your people, to strive to tell the whole story, to seek to safeguard, sustain, and secure the integrity and dignity of those who have gone before and those who stand beside us. May your Wisdom guide us so that we and all your children may flourish under the banner of justice and peace. Be reconciled one to another. Seek after justice. Be bearers of truth. Sit in discomfort. Tell the whole story. Be agents of hope. Stand up for right.”
For some, the litany was deeply moving. Rochelle Fritsch, a descendant of the Godley family, later reflected:
“The litany gives me chills. I’m a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (headquartered in St. Louis) and never have I ever heard anything like this, nor the willingness to even broach it.”
Each year on August 19, Bishoff returns to the site where Will Godley was killed to share this story again. He tries to trace the deliberate choices made—by Pierce City’s mayor, the Lawrence County sheriff, and the county prosecutor—that contributed to the violence, as well as the collective silence of those who allowed an entire Black community to be driven out. At so many points, someone could have spoken up. But fear prevailed, and resistance was rare.
That remains our challenge today. To see clearly. To speak honestly. To refuse silence in the face of injustice.
And yet, there are signs of change. Bishoff said that last year, the Pierce City High School Marching Band had an African American drum major—leading the parade down Commercial Street. In this small way, the story continues to turn.
This article was written and submitted by Murray Bishoff; journalist, author, and historian who served as managing editor of ‘The Monett Times’ for over 20 years and has written extensively—since the 1970s—on Southwest Missouri history and culture. He is best known for his detailed research into the 1901 Pierce City lynching, memorial efforts including cemetery markers and a museum exhibit, and his historical novel ‘Cry of Thunder’.
Photos
*Not pictured in the group photo: The Rev. John Spicer and the Rev. Meg Rhodes
