Some books don't need to be lengthy to have a powerful impact on the reader. Elegy for Mary Turner by Rachel Marie-Crane Williams is one of those books. Small in size and short in length, its typography, illustrations, and paper are unusual. But it chroniclesa horrific crime in Georgia one hundred years ago.
Mary Turner's husband had been lynched, and she spoke out forcefully and publicly at the injustice. For that act of verbal defiance, she herself would be murdered by the people she passed by on a daily basis.
Lynchings were hardly unusual in that era in that part of our country. Though it was far more common for Black men to be murdered at the slightest pretext, other Black women through the years would meet the same cruel fate. She was taken to Folsom's Bridge along the Little River, then hanged upside down from a nearby tree, shot at, and eventually set on fire.
Had Mary Turner lived, she would have given birth one month later. Instead, her womb was sliced open, and the tiny baby's skull would be crushed underfoot.
By ironic coincidence, this horrendous event took place on Pentecost, when Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. But that year, in a tiny corner of rural Georgia, the spirit of a violent, murderous mob was anything but holy.
I'm Jim Kline, and that is my Perspective.
