Acknowledging the darkness
Stars: 4/5
In 1912, in Harris County, Ga., at the oak tree next to the baptismal font at Friendship Baptist Church, four Negroes were hanged for the murder of Norman Hadley. One of the four was a woman, the first in Georgia to be lynched, one a preacher, and two farmers. There was no trial, just an angry mob intent on meting out their form of justice:
An “...oft-repeated lesson...from those long ago days: that when the community wants a lynching, the community will get a lynching.” p 155
It’s one thing to be an investigative reporter and this bit of history is suddenly revealed to you; it’s another when it happened in your hometown and you uncover the role your great-grandfather, the Sheriff, and grandfather, the Deputy Sheriff, has played in the ghastly lynching. In both instances, this is the case for author Karen Branen.
Facing what seems to be an insurmountable headwind of family secrets and racial tension, Karen Branen is a truth-seeker and a truth-teller determined to salve to wounds of the past by exposing a history that is painful. A courageous effort on the part of Branen, to “..acknowledge the darkness in family history...” (p.180).
Similar to What Virtue There Is In Fire (Sam Hose lynching in Newnan, Ga.) and Fire In A Canebreak (quadruple lynching in Walton County, Ga.), The Family Tree will move you with its vivid recounting and brutal honesty (Branan, who is white, provides an inside peek into her family’s position on race and race relations).
[video: NewsOne. 2016. NewsOne Now feat. R. Martin]
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