The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi

by Wright Thompson

The barn always felt like a place that repelled people. Marvel Parker described it as “macabre” the first time we ever spoke about it. It was the site of violence, of shame, of depthless cruelty, a complicated site for historians to interpret or figure out an appropriate way to visit. All the other sites carry some note of redemption or tell the story of the societal decay that led to the killing, but this is a reminder of the opposite. There is no heroism to remember here. No defiance. Nobody burst through the door in the nick of time, or risked their life for another, nobody stood up to evil, no one stopped the torture. The only other space in twentieth-century American history with a similar absence of redemption is the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. But that’s a site of pilgrimage. The barn remains a working barn.