African American National Biography

The AANB is now up on Amazon. I don’t expect any of you to order it, as it’s a whopping eight hundred bucks. I would love to own a set myself, but I just can’t afford it with that price tag.

I have seven entries in the collection. Many of the African Americans I wrote about were important in the movement, but the one who sticks out to me the most is Mary Turner. Turner was lynched in Georgia in the early 1900s because she threatened to go to the federal authorities if her husband’s killers were not brought to justice. He had been mistakenly (as much as these things were mistakes) murdered by a mob.

Turner was eight months pregnant when she was led out to a field, tied to a tree, upside down, set on fire and had her baby cut from her. When the child fell to the ground crying, one of the on lookers crushed its head with his boot. This woman’s story really affected me a lot.

I had to go to the Georgia archives and read through months and months of old news papers, where blacks were talked about as if they were less intelligent and nothing more than thieves and murderers (ironic isn’t it?). It was interesting to read advertisements about ointments and herbs that were said to calm the black man. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about Mary Turner actually said that she had caused her own death because she’d “made unwise comments."

I enjoyed writing all the articles, and if you get a chance, check them out in your local library. I will.