Horrifying and urgent. The author did not hold back and was very direct in speech and imagery. I would encourage teachers to refer to this book when discussing the public attitude towards lynching. ( )

A riveting and stomach-turning historical account of a lynching rampage in Georgia in 1918 that saw a white mob murder the pregnant Mary Turner, her unborn child ripped from the womb, her husband, and eight or more other Black men.

The book includes found items and newspaper clippings, and I find the cavalier tone of this excerpt from a local paper of the time to be absolutely chilling:
Hayes Turner was hanged at the Okapilco river in Brooks county last night. His wife, it is claimed made unwise remarks today about the execution of her husband and the people in their indignant mood took exceptions to her remarks, as well as her attitude, and without waiting for nightfall took her to the river where she was hanged and her body riddled with bullets.

A historical marker about the atrocity was erected in 2009 near the site of Turner's murder. It is a sad statement on the current state of affairs that the final words in the book, a footnote under the text of the marker, tell us that it had to be removed in October 2020 due to repeated vandalism.

My only reservation about the book is the use of cursive throughout, which I fear will keep it from being read by many of my daughter's generation and younger who were not taught cursive in school and will see the stylized, splotchy and uneven handwriting as a barrier. ( )