Re: Group Asking City, County For $100,000 Each For Ed Johnson Memorial At The Walnut Street Bridge
I have no reason to disagree with the request for a proper memorial for Mr. Ed Johnson. I do wonder what Mr. Johnson would say about that amount of money and the community at large. Would he see other needs that might serve his memory better?
Unless I am completely mistaken, I have seen this gentleman's grave here in Chattanooga. Lost in a wooded cemetery area, covered with decades of grime, it could use a good cleaning and clearing around it. In fact, the whole cemetery needs help. Hopefully, the local neighbor who has volunteered years of work trying to win back this cemetery has reached Mr. Johnson's burial site and improved it?
Pleasant Garden Cemetery, founded in 1890, is the burial site for many of Chattanooga's early African-American community leaders, as well as Ed Johnson, the black man who was hung by a lynch mob on the Walnut Street Bridge in 1906, and two of the Scottsboro Boys.
Teddy Ladd
Ooltewah