Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching

Marie-Crane Williams (Run Home If You Don't Want to Get Killed) documents the 1918 murder of Mary Turner in this harrowing graphic work that incorporates explicit block prints, historical newspaper clippings, and yellowed telegrams to create the feel of a haunted scrapbook. In May of 1918, white mobs in southern Georgia went on a rampage, lynching 11 Black people in 10 days. Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant, spoke up to denounce the lynching of her husband. In response, the mob brutalized and murdered her, as well. Marie-Crane Williams builds her wrenching elegy around a series of evocative prints interspersed with tactile, infuriating primary source documents. Horrifying depictions of Turner's murder are juxtaposed with clips from contemporaneous news articles stating Turner made "unwise remarks" that "the people in their indignant mood took exceptions to... as well as her attitude." The introduction by Mariame Kaba connects the event to current activism: "As organizers today insist that we must #SayHerName in reference to Black women (cis and trans) whose lives are cut short by state-sanctioned violence, Mary Turner calls out to us from the grave." This succinct work confronts readers with atrocity, in a necessary tribute. (Mar.)

Williams (Run Home If You Don't Want To Be Killed) uses woodcuts, watercolor, clippings, photos, vintage postcards, and blotchy hand-inked script for the wrenching story of pregnant Mary Turner, tortured and lynched with her baby in 1918 Georgia simply for protesting the lynching of her husband the day before. All told some dozen people were lynched in that spree of mob violence, allegedly intended to avenge the killing of a white plantation owner. Hundreds of other Black people fled the area in terror, but no punishment ever came to the lynch mobs. Moreover, a full account appeared in the press due only to NAACP investigator Walter White. Supplemental essays (by a relative of the Turners, a historian, and an activist-educator) broaden the story. Excellent inspiration for creators seeking unique ways to tell difficult stories. VERDICT This well-done art-text collage about an unimaginably horrific crime resonates eerily with 2020's racist murders and antiracist activism—especially since a 2009 commemorative marker for Turner's lynching has had to be replaced with a simple steel cross due to vandalism.

Marie-Crane Williams (Run Home If You Don't Want to Get Killed) documents the 1918 murder of Mary Turner in this harrowing graphic work that incorporates explicit block prints, historical newspaper clippings, and yellowed telegrams to create the feel of a haunted scrapbook. In May of 1918, white mobs in southern Georgia went on a rampage, lynching 11 Black people in 10 days. Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant, spoke up to denounce the lynching of her husband. In response, the mob brutalized and murdered her, as well. Marie-Crane Williams builds her wrenching elegy around a series of evocative prints interspersed with tactile, infuriating primary source documents. Horrifying depictions of Turner's murder are juxtaposed with clips from contemporaneous news articles stating Turner made "unwise remarks" that "the people in their indignant mood took exceptions to... as well as her attitude." The introduction by Mariame Kaba connects the event to current activism: "As organizers today insist that we must #SayHerName in reference to Black women (cis and trans) whose lives are cut short by state-sanctioned violence, Mary Turner calls out to us from the grave." This succinct work confronts readers with atrocity, in a necessary tribute. (Mar.)