Regarding the Aftermaths of Lynching

Abstract

Dinah Kirkland was neither a lynching victim nor a famous antilynching crusader—two factors that would most likely grant her a place in the stories that lynching scholars typically tell. Although she may have led a full life beyond her appearance in archival materials, when I encountered her she was an African American mother on a mission. In 1937 her eighteen-yearold son Edward Kirkland went missing following an arrest in Ocala, Florida. Dinah wrote a letter to Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) asking him to check his investigative files for any lynching victims who resembled Edward. White responded that no one met the young man’s description but, believing the case involved a lynching, he asked members of local naacp branches to investigate.1 After a year of searching, Dinah wrote to White again, explaining that she had identified Edward’s remains and wanted help in bringing his killers to justice. A mother’s concern over her missing son, a need for answers, and an unwavering hope for justice emanate from her letters. Then, as quickly as she appears in the historical record, Dinah vanishes. Her entrance into and departure from lynching history archives via her correspondence opens a space for considering the families who lived with this violence.2 The current zoetrope of lynching historiography contains more images depicting lynching’s history than it did decades ago. Noticeably absent, however, is substantive analysis of how victims’ families had their lives transformed by it. I believe more lynching scholars can work on filling the spaces where victims’ lived experiences could be. Most lynching victims were isolated from their kin in the last moments of their lives and in the histories written about them. In reality many victims were embedded in families that experienced the force of their killings and the aftershocks. Pulling from historical limbo the uncounted women, men, and children who lived through this violence, but whose stories have been unheard or underexamined, is critical to understanding the ramifications of lynching. Lynching’s history will remain incomplete until scholars reckon with people such as Dinah Kirkland.