WaPo: “There is no way to atone for what happened to Charles Allie Thompson, William Thompson and William Grayson, Black men lynched in this rural county more than a century ago and then mostly erased from history.
But this week brought a measure of justice.
In a Reconstruction-era courtroom, Circuit Judge Dale B. Durrer granted a request from prosecutor Russell L. Rabb III to find that all three men “were and remain to this day innocent of their charges” because they were denied due process. The ruling mandates that documents about their horrific treatment at the hands of vigilante mobs remain unsealed in the Circuit Court’s records for future generations to see.
…
In Culpeper, a largely White and conservative county, Rabb, Durrer and the family members credited one woman with making this week’s event possible: Zann Nelson, 76, who spent nearly 20 years researching the long-forgotten cases and pestering local officials to set the record straight.
“I think it was a good day,” Nelson said as the courthouse crowd buzzed around her following the hearing. “There are those who might say, well, it was so long ago, why is it so important? Well, because it brings closure. Not just to families, but to the community.””