Wake County historical marker honors lynching victim more than 100 years later

ROLESVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Rolesville town leaders and the Wake County Community Remembrance Coalition unveiled a new historical marker on Saturday.

The marker was dedicated to George Taylor, an African American man who was lynched two miles southeast of Rolesville in 1918. The ceremony was held at Main Street Park where the marker will now stand.

More than 100 people were in attendance during Saturday's unveiling, including descendants of Taylor. Each family member told stories of how they discovered they were related to Taylor.

"When we found out about the event, I reached out to the coalition and asked why we weren't invited," Thelma Morrison, granddaughter of George Taylor, said to the crowd. "The coalition then told me that they'd been looking for me. They'd been looking for us."

The town said several of Taylor's family members booked flights from places like New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to RDU for the ceremony.

Shannon Hardy, Co-Founder of the Wake County Community Remembrance Coalition, said the unveiling had been a project that was years in the making. It started when her student asked if there had been any lynchings in Wake County.

In the fall of 2017, Hardy and her colleagues began researching Taylor's death and the events leading up to it. Hardy's students were also involved in the research that found 124 articles about Taylor's lynching after it happened.

According to the records, Taylor was accused of assaulting a white woman named Ruby Rogers and was arrested in Wilson. He was then taken to Wendell by train and driven to Rogers' home, where she originally was not able to identify Taylor as her assailant, but identified him after she heard his voice.

He was then put in a car to be taken to jail but, the car was intercepted by four men who took him to a nearby ravine and kept him there until a mob of over 300 people formed.

Taylor's body was found the next morning hanging from a tree.

Taylor's death remains one of the only documented lynchings to happen in Wake County.