Calling on Salisbury coach
was definitely a good move
My husband and I moved to Salisbury in mid-July. But there was one serious problem: We didn’t know anyone here who could help us unload our rental truck.
We decided to try calling a local football coach to see if he knew any high school students who could possibly work for us. We reached Coach Joe Pinyan at Salisbury High School, and he most graciously solved all our problems.
Coach Pinyan showed up on a hot Saturday morning with three huge members of his football team. All four of these gentlemen worked so hard and were a genuine pleasure to have in our home. Along with the help of one of our new neighbors, our truck was unloaded in record time.
A friend of ours told us before the move that she would pray for angels to come and help us move in. That’s exactly what we got ó great big angels named Joe, Justin, Eric, Bryce and neighbor Paul.
Thanks again, guys! We’ll be rooting for you at Salisbury High’s first home game.
ó Susan A. Davis
Salisbury
Healing old wounds
Editor’s note: The writer is the author of “A Game Called Salisbury: The Spinning of a Southern Tragedy and the Myths of Race,” about the Lyerly family murders of 1906 and the lynching of three sharecroppers blamed in the deaths.
As the 102nd anniversary of the lynching of Nease Gillespie, John Gillespie and Jack Dillingham approaches, I wonder if Salisbury has taken any steps yet to attempt to atone for or openly acknowledge the wrong committed against these three people of African/European descent, as well as the two who were lynched four years earlier.
After the Ed Johnson case (Chattanooga, 1906) was investigated a few years ago, that city and its court system took considerable steps to own up to their role in that atrocity.
As I understand it, there is no marker indicating where the Salisbury lynching victims of either 1906 or 1902 are buried ó nothing explaining that they were wrongfully murdered, without a trial, and denied protection as they awaited trial or that three of these victims were children.
I have publicly owned up to my own relatives’ likely involvement in this lynching.
It’s not a matter of apologizing for what someone else did over a century ago; it’s about fully acknowledging what happened ó letting go of the myths and doing what’s possible now to make it right.
ó Susan Barringer Wells
Kill Devil Hills