How My Southern Georgia Community Came Together Around the Memory of a Century-Old Mass Murder

Through the Mary Turner Project, Blacks and Whites Confronted and Consecrated Our Violent Past

The Little River snakes its slow-flowing black water along the boundary between Georgia’s Brooks and Lowndes Counties.

It is a place that has been dear to my family for generations. This was the river where my grandmother, the wife of a “white trash” sharecropper, fished for most of her 80 years. It is the place I learned to savor nature. I have swum, camped, fished, and canoed there for much of my life.

It is also the site of one of the most horrible lynchings in U.S. …

Is Forgiveness the Basis of a Healthy Democracy?

An Iranian Philosopher Posits That Only Absolving Others of Blame Can Open Dialogue and Rebuild Decency

Why do we have such difficulty thinking about forgiveness? Read the news on any day and you’ll find stories of war, injustices present and past, and attacks on democracy. It’s …