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Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America
by
Cynthia Carr
The brutal lynching of two young black men in Marion, Indiana, on August 7, 1930, cast a shadow over the town that still lingers. It is only one event in the long and complicated history of race relations in Marion, a history much ignored and considered by many to be best forgotten. But the lynching cannot be forgotten. It is too much a part of the fabric of Marion, too mu...more
Hardcover, 501 pages
Published
March 21st 2006
by Crown
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This book is very tenderly written. Cynthia Carr has lived in NYC for years and written for the Village Voice. However, she is from Marion, Indiana. This was the site of a famous lynching in 1930. She finds out that her grandfather was in the Klan and wonders if he was part of it. The book describes her journey into her past and the past of Marion, Indiana. she talks to may Klan folks, she talks to the people in her town and is a fine journalist in her seeking out of information. Her voice is ne...more
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Picked this one up on a "help yourself" shelf at a bookstore. It has taken me two years to finally get to it. What timing! A long, sometimes tedious story of the lynching of two Afro=Americans in Marion Indiana in 1930----who did it; why? and why relevant today? Lots of detail on the KKK.....and interesting linkages to Milwaukee and its Afro=American Holocaust Museum (did you know that?).What it did though was to release of flood of childhood memories.....things I had not thought about...more
A book touching on race relations between black and white is bound to strike a nerve; I read one review that picked on Ms. Carr for being "me-focused", for patting herself on the back as an enlightened white, for writing too long of a book, for spending too much time with the pathetic white supremacists. Ultimately I enjoyed her narrative and insights into the Klan, which as a PacNWer I had no concept of, as well as her willingness in submerging herself in her home town, county, and s...more
This is a book that makes you recoil from what you may see in a mirror.
The famous photo of the lynching in Marion, Indiana led Ms. Carr (a longtime resident of New York and reviewer for the Village Voice) to re-exmine her native town and those people she grew up among.
What she discovered about long-time family acquaintances and even her own family will make you reconsider what you think you know about your home town, who you are and what you think you know.
This book develops slowl...more
The famous photo of the lynching in Marion, Indiana led Ms. Carr (a longtime resident of New York and reviewer for the Village Voice) to re-exmine her native town and those people she grew up among.
What she discovered about long-time family acquaintances and even her own family will make you reconsider what you think you know about your home town, who you are and what you think you know.
This book develops slowl...more
Mallorie
marked it as to-read
Interested to read about my hometown of Marion, IN...
Excellent book. I personally know Cinthia. Im in this book.
This is an amazing tale. I didn't love her style (it sometimes read more like a journal of a journalist than like a compiled thesis based on her research)--but I appreciated her points. It rang true. Worth reading.
Rick
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