The only person known to have survived a lynching attack died last week in Washington at 92. The rope was pulled so tight, it left marks for the rest of his life.
He symbolized one of the ugliest periods on our nation's history -- a time when fathers and husbands, brothers and sons, friends and neighbors were snatched from their homes and murdered at the end of a rope.
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His story to me is a family tale, a family legend. Family shame.
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That's why he spent much of his life trying to salve the wound with knowledge, in hopes that one day it would heal.
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Official accounts put the number of lynching victims at about 4,700, though there were likely many more. The recorded lynchings were documented by reporters and photographers. Postcards depicting lynchings became popular souvenirs until the same Congress that never outlawed lynching made the postcards illegal.
Cameron and I talked about those postcards once. He told me I needed to see them so that I could understand how it had been. How ugly and hateful.
It's the power of story