Callaway's lynching lived in whispers among African-Americans of that era. As they passed on, in the absence of official records, media accounts or a gravestone, Callaway faded from the town's collective memory.
Almost no one in LaGrange today knew Austin Callaway's name until recently -- not his descendants, not the local NAACP president, not the mayor, not even Police Chief Louis Dekmar.
As the chief learned more about the lynching, he came to understand how it strained relations between his force and the African-American community. He decided it was time to apologize for law enforcement's role and acknowledge its impact on community relations.
"The past shapes the present," he said in an interview before the event.
Source: Police Chief Louis Dekmar - Louis Dekmar, Police Chief of LaGrange Georgia, as quoted in "'Justice failed Austin Callaway': Town attempts to atone for 1940 lynching", Emanuella Grinberg, CNN, 28 Jan 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-callaway-1940-lynching/index.html