Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America

On that July evening in 1946, the leader counted aloud and the mob of white men fired. Seconds later, the leader counted again, "One, two, three," and the mob fired once more. After the third and final volley of gunshots, the white men got into their cars and drove off, leaving the bullet-ridden bodies of two young black men and two young black women lying in the dirt near Moore's Ford Bridge in rural Walton County, Georgia. Since that summer evening, there have never been as many victims lynched in a single day in America.

Now, more than a half century later, Laura Wexler offers the first full account of the Moore's Ford lynching, a murder so brutal it stunned the nation and motivated President Harry Truman to put civil rights at the forefront of his national agenda. With the style of a novelist, the authority of a historian, and the tenacity of a journalist, Wexler recounts the lynching and the resulting four-month FBI investigation. Drawing from interviews, archival sources, and an uncensored FBI report, she takes us deep into the landscape of 1946 Georgia, creating unforgettable portraits of sharecroppers, sheriffs, bootleggers, the victims, and the men who may have killed them.

Fire in a Canebrake pursues the legacy of the Moore's Ford lynching into the present, exploring the conflicting memories of Walton County's black and white citizens and examining the testimony of a white man who claims he was a secret witness to the crime. In 2001, the governor of Georgia issued a new reward for information leading to the arrest of the lynchers. Several suspects named in the FBI's 1946 investigation are still alive, and there is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder.

Fire in a Canebrake -- a phrase local people used to describe the sound of the fatal gunshots -- is a moving and often frightening tale of violence, sex, and lies. It is also a disturbing snapshot of a divided nation on the brink of the civil rights movement and a haunting meditation on race, history, and the struggle for truth.

Wexler takes us back to the beginning when a black man, Roger Malcolm, stabs a white man, Barnett Hester, for allegedly having an affair with his common law wife, Dorothy. As Barnett lingers near death, Roger sits in jail counting his days left on earth. Eleven days later when Barnett recovers, Roger is then set free when his bail is posted by Loy Harrison, a wealthy landowner and landlord to George Dorsey (Dorothy's older brother) and his common law wife, Mae Murray. It is returning home from the jail that Roger, Dorothy, George, and Mae are dragged from Loy's car by an angry mob of white men and are murdered in cold blood. Loy claims he did not and could not recognize any of the attackers which was why his life was spared on that fateful day....and so the lying begins and never seems to end.

For years, the NAACP, FBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), and local law enforcement conduct their investigations, interrogations, and examinations only to arrive at no convictions. It is only in 1991, when an "eyewitness" steps forward to tell his story that there appears to be a slither of hope for justice. However, hope fades as holes and contradictions run rampant in his testimony as well; and unfortunately by the early 1990's all of the suspected perpetrators and potential corroborating witnesses are deceased. It appears that the leads had literally died out and one wonders if justice will ever be served.

The author does an excellent job of "peeling back the layers" to set the stage for the story and expertly blends in the national and state political agendas that influenced the course of events surrounding the lynching. By doing so, the reader understands the history of the rural Georgian townships where the story plays out, the role of the key witnesses including their family and criminal backgrounds, public displays of bigotry and drunkenness. She also shares the political tactics of the day used to deny blacks of their Civil Rights and protection under Federal law, numerous contradictions in the witness's statements/alibis/affidavits, and lack of follow-up and missed opportunities by law officials. The handling of the case by the investigators from beginning to end is totally unbelievable by today's standards, but what is moreso shocking is the blatant racism, hatred, and wantonness of the townsfolk toward an atrocity such as this.

This reader ran a myriad of emotions while reading the novel -- first, frustration in that no perpetrators were ever brought to justice and nor was anyone ever held accountable for these heinous crimes -- a fact that is unfortunately recurrent in so many lynching cases. Secondly, anger and sadness when reading about the intimidation and threats against local blacks as well as the breakdown and separation of the victim's families in the aftermath of the lynching. The murders only exacerbated their wretched existence as poor, undereducated sharecroppers. The author's skill in conveying their daily living conditions and lifestyle using census statistics and first hand accounts was outstanding and heartbreaking.

This book is a page-turner! Although Oprah, Dateline, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have covered this story, Wexler adds a twist: her words breathe life into the pages and add color to the black and white photos in the book; she presents the evidence in such a way to allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Hats off to Ms. Wexler for her perseverance and dedication to finding truth. Well done!

Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, The Nubian Circle Book Club


Disturbung to say the least   March 30, 2003
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

I live 20 minutes away from where this tragic event occurred. I have lived in this area for over 30 years and just recently became aware that the lynching occurred. I decided to read the book when a friend of mine told me it was out - we had discussed the history of the event a few months earlier as he was raised in Walton County and knew of some of the people mentioned in the book. I have to say that the entire book was very disturbing to me. I cannot in any way imagine an entire community keeping quiet about what happened. I cannot imagine the hate that caused this tragedy. I cannot understand the fear instilled in the black population so that they did not even come forward with information. I am in a interracial marriage and it is amazing to me that a few decades ago this would've caused an uproar that may have lead to murder.
The book is a good one. It will keep you interested throughout. Of course I knew before starting how it would end up - no conclusions on who did it - I learned a great deal about what actually occurred and have drawn my own ideas about what happened and who may have been involved. Knowing the area added to the "enjoyment" for lack of a better word, of reading, but it is definitely not necessary.
I am glad I was disturbed while I read this book. I hope everyone who reads it is as well. Too bad we'll never know what really happened.


An instant American classic   March 14, 2003
 6 out of 9 found this review helpful

This book is an accurate and detailed historical account of The Morre's Ford Bridge Lynching that took place in Walton County, GA in 1946. For those of you doing the math that's only 57 years ago. Though certainly not the last recorded lynching, it was significant in that it eventually affected the political landscape of the country. The book combines the best of history, politics, race relations, slavery, and good old fashion detective work.

Laura Wexler is an author and researcher extraordinaire. Her talents are unmatched by anything I have read in recent times and certainly on par with American Literary Giants. Ms. Wexler's (a white woman) only shortcoming is that she fails to capture the anger a person of color could have brought to such events. Without saying anything more, yesterday afternoon I gave the book to my wife, by 11:00pm she had read 168 pages.

As you read be mindful of the following. Focus on the dates of those events, how relatively few years have passed between 1946 and 2003. For that matter think about the climate of America back in 1966. Only twenty years removed from the Morre's Ford Bridge lynching and unilaterally all whites would agree times were still overtly oppressive for blacks. With that, think about Affirmative Action and how 1966 represents one generation of blacks, still not fully removed from out right racist attitudes. I also want my friends to consider the prevailing attitude of whites in 1946 and how to this day, or at least 1997-1999 how those attitudes stood the test of time. Consider not just the rural, simplistic, racist cotton farmers, but the complex, covert, economic, and political powers of those white racists in place at the time. What do you think the power elite taught their children? If they taught their children their core values and belief system (which all good parents do), do you think those children (today's white leaders) would act upon their beliefs overtly or covertly? What struggles do you think Blacks might still face today?

As we STRUGGLE to understand and move past our differences, it is imperative that we recognize the RECENT history of overt racial oppression and the healing power of Affirmative Action. Growing up, Black men used the phrase "my brother" as a greeting. In that greeting we recognized not our biological sibling, nor our color, but more deeply our common struggle. To remove it from the vernacular and express it for what we were really trying to say, "my partner in struggle."

Your Brother,
habworks


So much for Southern heritage   March 11, 2003
 7 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is a book about a horrendous assassination of four black residents of a neighboring county of Atlanta in 1946, but it is also a book on Southern culture, as it had existed since the time of the Civil War. The author depicts a close-knit, rural society dominated by white landowners who basically controlled their communities' affairs including the dispensing of justice as they saw fit. Keeping the blacks of the area under a watchful eye and in a subordinate economic position was a huge part of that control. Any deviation from their prescribed roles and permitted behaviors, generally resulted in some form of physical violence being perpetrated upon blacks. Of course, law enforcement personnel, if not assisting in this extra-legal violence, looked the other way.

The assassination of these four individuals screamed across the nation's headlines in the summer of 1946 to the surprise of the local residents. This dispensing of justice, while more egregious than was usually the case, was from the same timeworn mold. The local thought was, Why the clamor? The FBI, the NAACP, and any number of reporters descended on Walton County, Georgia that summer. But all of those parties met with silence, fear, dissembling, conflicting stories, and a decided lack of evidence. Five months of investigation, including the convening of a federal grand jury, yielded only some potential suspects, but the evidence was slight and inconclusive.

The author seemed to have a vague notion that she would be able to sift through the evidence and solve the case, aided by further digging. That thought was fueled by the fact that an alleged first-hand witness to the murders had come forward with his story in the early 1990s. It becomes evident in the course of the book that the new revelation was largely a fabrication, though the motivation remains unclear.

The author's project began in 1997, fifty-one years after the crime. Virtually all of the suspects and witnesses had died by that time. Most of the recapitulation of the days leading to the killings was derived from the extensive interviews conducted by the FBI in 1946. Other sources were newspaper accounts and files from the NAACP. In the beginning, the author attempts to piece together the steps and actions of the principals in the days leading to the murders. Most of the book is devoted to bouncing around the conflicting evidence as it was gathered. Some conclusions can be drawn, but mostly the truth remains obscure.

Of course, anyone reading this book would realize that the crime has not been solved, so that is not a good reason to read the book. And it is a slight criticism of the book that after that much effort, the author does not in the end offer much in the way of speculation as to the perpetrators. The importance of this book is that it lays bare the notion that Southern society treated blacks, though perhaps differently, benignly. Life for blacks in the olden South was nothing short of brutal. One wonders just what it is from the past that Southerners want to defend in the various flag controversies now raging throughout Southern states. This book makes quite clear that atonement for the past should be on the minds of rural Southerners, not preservation.