Actress Pam Grier’s emotional recounting of childhood racism on Disney‑owned ABC’s The View took a dramatic turn after public fact‑checking exposed major inaccuracies in her description of a lynching in Columbus, Ohio. Grier claimed her mother once shielded her eyes from a lynching victim “hanging from a tree” while the family walked through the Ohio city. Her remarks ignited reactions online and raised questions about memory, media narratives, and historical accuracy.
Grier, known for roles in films like Foxy Brown and Jackie Brown, spoke about her upbringing in Columbus and the challenges she faced as a Black child whose family lived off‑base because military housing was unavailable to Black families at the time. She described long walks with her family from “tree shade to shade” as they made their way to their apartment, setting the stage for her later recounting of the alleged lynching.
“My mom would go, ‘Don’t look! Don’t look! Don’t look!’ and she’d pull us away, because there was someone hanging from a tree,” Grier said on air, prompting audible reactions from co‑hosts and the studio audience. She went on to assert that the city now has a memorial indicating the site of the event, and tied her experience to broader claims about the dangers faced by Black families and their supporters.
However, viewers quickly pushed back on the historicity of Grier’s account. Publicly available historical records show that the last documented lynching in the state of Ohio occurred in 1911, decades before Grier’s 1949 birth, and that there is no verified record of a lynching in Columbus at any time. Institutions that study racial terror lynchings confirm the absence of such an event in that city.
Social media users added Community Notes to clips of the interview, emphasizing the historical record and correcting the narrative in real time. The fact check notes highlighted that while lynchings were a tragic part of American history, they did not occur in Columbus during Grier’s childhood, and that the city’s memorials do not mark the site of a lynching as Grier described.
The episode underscores the importance of grounding discussions about race and history in verified fact, especially on national television. While experiences of discrimination and segregation were real for many Americans of color, conflating personal recollections with unsupported historical claims undermines trust and distracts from genuine, documented injustices.
For conservative audiences concerned about accurate portrayal of American history and media accountability, the Grier interview serves as a reminder that emotional storytelling must be balanced with factual integrity.
