Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Actress Claims Her Mother Shielded Her From Seeing Lynched Bodies — But The Crumbles With Basic Fact-Check

[Screenshot/The View]

Actress Pam Grier claimed on Monday that her mother had to shield her from seeing a lynched body hanging from a tree in Columbus, Ohio, but the last lynching in the state happened decades before she was born.

Grier, who was born in 1949, told the co-hosts that she, her mother and brother would witness lynched bodies hanging from trees on their walk home to her apartment building. However, the last recorded lynching in Ohio occurred on June 27, 1911, in Cleveland, and none of these lynchings even happened in Columbus, according to America’s Black Holocaust Museum.

“And sometimes we would go from tree shade to shade to get back to the apartment. My brother and I, my mom, with bags. And my mom would go, ‘don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.’ She’d pull us away. Because there was someone hanging from a tree,” Grier said. “And they have a memorial for it now where you can see where people were and left. And it triggers me today to see that a voice can be silenced. And if a white family supported a black, they’re going to get burned down or killed or lynched as well.” 

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An underground lynching occurred in South Point, Ohio, in June 1932, 17 years before Grier was born, according to the Law Office of Julian Johnson. A black man named Luke Murray got into a physical altercation with a white man who warned him to stay away from the niece of a family he worked for. After they were both arrested, a mob of 14 men took Murray from the jail, drove him out of town and killed him.

None of the co-hosts at the table challenged Grier about her inconsistency. Co-host Sunny Hostin has consistently referred to the U.S. as a “racist” country, accused Republicans and President Donald Trump of racism and has supported diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.