Black and white church members brought different fears to a lynching memorial visit

Evidence

The night before the trip, the twenty-one members from both churches, ranging in age from their twenties to their seventies, held a meeting to discuss their hopes and worries about the trip. … More than one African American member said that anticipating the trip had recalled old stories, which they had somewhat suppressed, about family members disappearing. One recalled cautionary lessons he had received as a child about “how you carry yourself in public and around white people” to avoid potentially life-threatening confrontations. Another worried, “Am I gonna see names I recognize? What will I feel when I see these things, and do I want to go there?” A white member from a prominent family with a “proud Confederate history,” who said only half-jokingly that his wife had signed him up for the trip, shared emotionally that he was just at this pretrip meeting realizing that his hopes and fears were the same: “That I’ll feel responsible.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 601

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enslaved church members built and financed the churches that then excluded them — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 595; Lynching was collective public ritual expressing white supremacy, not aberrant violence — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 162

Broader Connections

• Lynching was collective public ritual expressing white supremacy, not aberrant violence #complicates (0.78) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 162