GEORGETOWN, Del. - Tuesday is the last night the whipping post in Georgetown will spend in the public view.
The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs will remove it Wednesday at 9:30 am. It is unknown when this whipping post was installed, but it was placed next to the Old Sussex County Courthouse in 1993. Before that it sat on the grounds of the Sussex Correctional Institution. Whipping posts were used for punishment in all three counties in the 20th century.
President of the Richard Allen Coalition Jane Hovington says white people were whipped there too. Those sentenced to the whipping post could be lashed up to 40 times for a single offense.
"I live in Georgetown and every time I come to that corner I see that whipping post," says Hovington. "If I wanted to go to a museum and see it, that would be my prerogative."
"When something like this is removed, it shows that our community is trying to understand each other better," says Dr. Brittany Hazzard. "Our state is trying to understand each other better and not just talk about it, but actually make changes."
Hovington says the whipping post will be relocated to the state's museum. HCA intends to work with historians, educators and leaders of the African American community in Delaware to explore plans for future display of this artifact in a museum setting, where it can be properly contextualized and interpreted.