Remembering Fred Shannon

By: Dee Parker

This is a speech read aloud at the Eastern Kentucky Remembrance Project memorial for Fred Shannon on Oct. 26 at the Wayland Community Center. Fred Shannon was a Black Man who was lynched in 1924.

One hundred years. One hundred years since Fred Shannon’s life was stolen by a mob of white men in a small town in Eastern Kentucky. As I stand here, in this place, I can’t help but feel the weight of that century—one hundred years of silence, unanswered questions, and untold pain.

I am a Black man who lives in Eastern Kentucky, and every day, I feel the tension between my love for this land and the way this land has treated my people. We have lived here, worked here, built our lives here—and yet, we have been terrorized. Fred Shannon’s story is just one of thousands, one of the nearly 4,400 Black men and women lynched in this country between 1877 and 1950. And while their names may be forgotten by many, their stories have never left us. These are wounds that don’t heal. These are traumas that get passed down from generation to generation.

Fred Shannon was a man. A man accused of murder over a $5 debt. On October 25th, 1924, he was taken to a jail in Wayland, KY, to await his trial, to be judged by a court of law. But the law never got its chance, because on that night, a mob of white men broke through the walls of that jail. They broke through those walls not for justice, but for blood. They shot Fred Shannon where he stood, and he died the next day—October 26th, 1924. There were guards that night, there were witnesses, but they saw nothing. They claimed to hear nothing. They said the mob came like ghosts, silent and unseen.

But the truth was loud and clear for every Black person in Kentucky. This was a lynching. This was racial terror. This was another Black life erased, another Black family left to grieve without hope, without answers, without justice. And like so many lynchings in Kentucky, there was no investigation, no arrests, no consequences for the lives of Black people. 

I can’t stand here and pretend that I don’t feel anger, that I don’t feel rage at the injustice of it all. How do you hold that kind of pain and not want to scream at the world for being so indifferent to our suffering? How do you live with the knowledge that this could have been your father, your brother, your son—and that no one would have cared enough to demand the truth?

But in this pain, I also feel gratitude—because today, Fred Shannon is not forgotten. His story is no longer buried in the shame of silence. He is being acknowledged, and this atrocity is being brought to light. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. It’s a sign that maybe, just maybe, we are ready to confront the horrors of our past, to reckon with the racism that has scarred this land for far too long.

When I think of Fred Shannon, I think of how he could have been any one of us—any Black man who dared to live in a world that saw us as less than human. And I think about the thousands of others who died just like him, in small towns across Kentucky, across the South, across this country. Their lives were stolen, their stories silenced, but their blood still cries out for justice.

As we mark the 100th anniversary of Fred Shannon’s lynching, I ask us all to do more than just remember. We must uncover the truth, we must face the brutal reality of our history, and we must demand a reckoning. We owe it to Fred Shannon, to the generations before us, and to the generations that will follow. We cannot heal what we do not confront.

I stand here today, a son of Kentucky, a son of Appalachia, with a heart full of grief, but also full of hope. Grateful that this story is finally being told. Hopeful that Fred Shannon’s death will no longer be in vain. And determined to make sure that the full truth of our history is uncovered, no matter how painful it may be.

The road ahead is long, and the work is hard, but we must not give up. We must keep fighting for justice, for recognition, for healing. Because our ancestors deserve it. Because Fred Shannon deserves it. And because the future demands it."