Actress Pam Grier tearfully recounted on The View’s MLK Day episode that, as a child in Columbus, Ohio, her mother shielded her eyes from a lynching victim “hanging from a tree,” saying “Don’t look! Don’t look! Don’t look!” and noting a memorial exists, while linking it to silenced voices and risks for white supporters of Black families.
Almost immediately, the claim drew public fact-checking on X via Community Notes and reports, highlighting that no lynchings have ever been recorded in Columbus. Others noted that Ohio’s last lynching occurred in 1911, according to America’s Black Holocaust Museum, decades before Grier’s birth in 1949.
“The military wouldn’t allow black families on the base, so you had to live in an apartment,” the dramatic host claimed, “And you couldn’t take a bus… You couldn’t afford a car, you walked. Your dads walked to the base.”
Continuing, she absurdly claimed, “Sometimes, we would go from tree shade to shade to get back to the apartment — my brother and I, and my mom — with bags. 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.”
“They have a memorial for it now, where you can see where people were and left,” she concluded, “It triggers me today, to see that a voice can be silenced… And if a white family supported a black [family], they’re going to get burned down, killed, or lynched as well.”
As soon as the clip surfaced on social media, conservatives flocked to mock Pam Grier’s shameless race-baiting. A community note declared, “The last lynching in Ohio took place in 1911 while Pam Grier was born in 1949.” Additionally, one viral post said, “Nothing about this is true, and The View just let her keep lying. It’s a fantasy.”
“Pam Grier went on The View today & told a story about how she saw a lynched body hanging from a tree as a kid in Columbus, OH back in the 1950s. Did Grier bother to tell anyone before today? There’s no record she has,” an irate conservative posted.
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Larry Elder, a prominent black conservative, joked, “Actress@PamGrier, on@TheView’s MLK Day show, said as a young girl growing up in Columbus, Ohio she witnessed a lynching victim “hanging from a tree” that “triggers” her to this day.”
Watch the clip here:
Pam Grier recalls her mom trying to protect her from seeing lynched bodies hanging to trees in Columbus, Ohio. She noted that white families would also be lynched for supporting black families:
“My mom would go, ‘don’t look, don’t look, don’t look,’ and she would pull us away… pic.twitter.com/UG6AaZfy1q
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 19, 2026
Concluding his comment, he sarcastically noted, “But the Black Holocaust Museum says there’s never been a lynching in Columbus. As for the state of Ohio, the Black Holocaust Museum notes the last lynching in Ohio took place in 1911. Assuming this is the lynching Grier recalls seeing, she looks FABULOUS for someone pushing 120 years old. Black…TRULY…don’t…crack!!!” adding, “@JussieSmollett was unavailable for comment.”
Featured image from embedded video