“You leave when you get ready, and not with nobody telling you."

September 20, 2015 7:20 PM

Mamie Lang was 7 years old when her father gathered her mother and her four siblings in the middle of the night to catch a train. The Langs left Ellisville, Mississippi, just ahead of a lynch mob. Mamie Lang Kirkland returned to the town of her birth this year, a century later. SLNYT
posted by Etrigan (9 comments total)

Note: second link is an article about getting around paywalls.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:15 PM on September 20, 2015

A LYNCHING SURVIVOR RETURNS - Equal Justice Initiative
posted by pracowity at 12:45 AM on September 21, 2015

If I had her memories, I would not ever want to go back there. What happened to her father's friend who did go back is illustrative:

The front page of The Jackson Daily News announced that Mr. Hartfield would be lynched at 5 p.m. “Governor Bilbo Says He Is Powerless to Prevent It,” the headline read. “Thousands of People Are Flocking Into Ellisville to Attend the Event.”

The Ellisville population of 1,700 instantly multiplied as crowds spilled out of the Hotel Alice and into the open space along the train tracks. A postcard depicting the scene bears the caption: “Waiting for the Show to Start.”

Mr. Hartfield was dragged to a big gum tree and strung up. A rain of bullets from the crowd seemed to reanimate the corpse, which finally fell to the ground and was burned to ashes. Some took body parts as souvenirs.

Most of us have this idea that lynchings were done in secret, in the dead of night, by a few extreme bigots unrepresentative of the citizenry. That idea is wrong. The attitudes that motivated that crowd 100 years ago live on and are continually reinforced, even today. As far as we have come, we have so very, very far to go.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:00 AM on September 21, 2015 [10 favorites]

This story is heartbreaking on so many levels. Kirth makes a good point, in that many people have no idea that lynching was a "bring a picnic and the kids" activity in large swaths of the nation. This unspoken shame continues to play out in how people of color are still treated and policed.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:52 AM on September 21, 2015

On the plus side, Ellisville seems to have taken steps to purge their collective memory of those times, rather than erecting statues to the brave defenders of white purity. Maybe in another generation, they'll be more willing to fess up to it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:32 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

But its undercurrent of pain caused her repeatedly to turn to her son and ask, “Do I have to tell that?”

Yes, he answered gently. People should know.


Gah, now I'm crying. I hate that she has to suffer through it again, but he's so, so right. It sucks so hard that our desire to forget all the bad stuff that happens to other people is so strong.


But now she was telling the mayor exactly why her family had fled this town so long ago. Her story seemed to touch him.

“Good gracious, that’s terrible,” the mayor said.

He assured her that things had changed. Better sewers, better plumbing, more job opportunities. Yes, everyone pretty much gets along, black and white.

As Mamie Kirkland, 107, prepared to leave, the mayor emphasized that she was always welcome in Ellisville. “You leave when you get ready,” he said. “And not with nobody telling you.”


Yeah, that's great and all, Mr. Mayor, but you represent this town - how about some kind of an apology? I mean, sure, the individual people holding the ropes and torches are dead now, but jeez.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:37 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am a white person of undeniable privilege, but I wouldn't set foot in Ellisville if I could avoid it. It's actually very close to my hometown, and is in some ways a suburb or satellite of the next town over (Laurel), which is where my parents were from.

It is, and always has been, an unremitting shithole filled with poverty and ignorance.
posted by uberchet at 7:50 AM on September 21, 2015

On the plus side, Ellisville seems to have taken steps to purge their collective memory of those times, rather than erecting statues to the brave defenders of white purity.

Um,

Behind her loomed the Jones County Courthouse, built in 1908, the year of her birth. A marble Confederate soldier facing north in defiance, erected when she was 4. And two identical drinking fountains, with plaques covering up the distinguishing inscriptions: “White” and “Colored.”

They may not have erected any such monuments recently, but they don't seem to be tearing down the existing ones, either. Even the water fountain seems like an unsavory relic.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:22 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

They may not have erected any such monuments recently, but they don't seem to be tearing down the existing ones, either.

Yeah, my next sentence points out that I'm not really letting them off the hook here.
posted by Etrigan at 10:24 AM on September 21, 2015