The soil in the clear jar is a reminder of a dark moment in Atlanta history.
The red dirt symbolizes the location where Dennis T. Hubert, an 18-year-old Morehouse College student, was lynched by a group of white men in 1930 Atlanta’s Pittsburgh neighborhood.
The jar has Hubert’s name on it and a medal draped across the top.
On Sunday, Morehouse honored Hubert during its commencement ceremony with a posthumous degree.
Credit: Con
Credit: Con
“Today, we do what history failed to do. We restore dignity. We restore honor,” the college’s outgoing president, David A. Thomas, said during the ceremony.
“We remember the son who should have become a man here,” Thomas said seconds later. “We remember that he would have preached liberation. We remember the dreamer who was never given the chance to dream.”
Hubert was a sophomore at Morehouse, studying in the divinity school. On the fateful afternoon of June 15, 1930, Hubert was on the playground at the segregated Crogman School for Black children, when he was confronted by seven white men. He was falsely accused of disrespecting two drunken white women in the company of two white men in the neighborhood.
The men came back to the area, along with five others, looking for the man who had insulted the women. They accosted Hubert, the son of one of the city’s most prominent Black ministers, the Rev. Gaddus J. Hubert.
“What do you want from me? I have done nothing,” eyewitnesses said Dennis Hubert asked.
Moments later, he was shot at point-blank range and left for dead on the schoolhouse grounds.
The killing shocked the city. Seven white men were indicted for his murder. Some of the suspects claimed the killing was “justifiable homicide” because of the alleged insult.
Two days after officials denied the white men bail, the home of Hubert’s father was burned to the ground in an arson, according to Fulton County’s Remembrance Project.
When the Wheat Street Baptist Church held a meeting to raise money to rebuild the burned home and support prosecution of the accused men, a white mob bombed the church with tear gas.
A few days later Hubert’s cousin, the Rev. Charles R. Hubert, narrowly escaped an attempted murder, and Sisters’ Chapel at Spelman College was attacked, according to the Remembrance Project.
None the men were convicted of murder. Two were convicted of lesser crimes. One defendant received 12-15 years imprisonment for voluntary manslaughter, while the defendant who confessed to firing the fatal shot received a sentence of just two years.
Hubert’s family attended Sunday’s commencement. His nephew, Iman Phelmon El-Amin, accepted the degree.
“We return him to the brotherhood that was always his,” Thomas told the audience.
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