An American lynching: ‘I could hear their screams’

How a mass lynching and the people re-enacting it are forcing the US to confront the truth of its past and its present. The country’s criminal justice system was deemed “too good” for Black people, Boone says, and led to scores being killed without a trial or investigation. According to Tyrone Brooks, a veteran of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and chairman of the Moore’s Ford Movement, the re-enactments, which are held every year on July 25 – the anniversary of the lynching – are aimed at making “sure America never forgets that lynchings were a common strategy to suppress, intimidate and kill people in this country – and we won’t allow America to hide from this past.” For the Dorseys and Malcolms, the re-enactments also serve as a family reunion. “We’re saying their names and we want the world to hear it and we want the world to know what happened here.” “Our family coming back together feels like closure to us,” she reflects. “There’s a clear line drawn and you can see the different socioeconomic statuses between the white and Black communities very clearly.” “Growing up here, there was a lot of fear,” Robinson adds.